Investments by Li Ka-shing and his Cheung Kong group have generally been welcome in Australia but a political furore over a new toll road in Sydney has revealed just how far Australian authorities have gone to roll out the welcome mat.
Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) holds a 50 per cent interest in Sydney's new A$680 million ($3.94 billion) Cross City Tunnel, a 2.1km toll road linking the city's business district with the neighbourhoods of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst.
But barely two months after its opening - also celebrated by CKI chairman Victor Li Tzar-kuoi at a party at Hong Kong's Conrad hotel last month - tunnel traffic is a fraction of the 90,000 vehicles a day that had been expected.
Not only that, the development has become so unpopular that many motorists are boycotting it, furious at having to fork out a fee of A$7 or more for a return trip.
The situation has become so dire, with barely 20,000 cars a day using the new tunnel, that its operators have announced concessions, such as a toll-free travel period and a freeze on toll increases, in a bid to woo the city's motorists.
The Cross City Tunnel has begun its life with the tag of 'white elephant', but documents made public in Sydney last week revealed that if anyone is going to pay the price for the miscalculation, it will be the New South Wales government, and not CKI and its partners Deutsche Asset Management and Bilfinger Berger which have a 30-year concession.
The full contracts, released after weeks of unrelenting public and political pressure, show that the operators are entitled to raise the toll at a 4 per cent annual minimum, adjusted quarterly, until 2012 and to increase it a further 3 per cent annually until 2018.