Link debacle sounds alarm for government plans but officials still confident about Chek Lap Kok
The legal challenge that shelved the Housing Authority's Link Reit, or real estate investment trust, has cast a long shadow over the government's larger privatisation programme.
However, according to a senior public official, the fiasco centred on 151 grubby commercial retail outlets and 79,000 parking spaces has not dissuaded the government from privatising one of its crown jewels - Hong Kong International Airport.
'We will watch [the Link proceedings] carefully and see how they develop,' Sandra Lee Suk-yee, permanent secretary for economic development and labour, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
'We've heard people say they agree with privatisation although, admittedly, most people say they [have reservations]. We have not heard anyone advocating an alternative route to privatisation.'
A public consultation on the Airport Authority's proposed privatisation was initiated last month and is due to continue until mid-February.
But what was a benign political environment at the consultation's outset has turned tempestuous, after the humble court challenge of a 67-year-old semi-literate public housing tenant, Lo Siu-lan, upended the best-laid plans of the chief executive's administration, its investment bankers and legal advisers.