THERE were positive signs from China yesterday regarding a British offer to substantially raise the amount of capital to be injected into the Chek Lap Kok airport and its associated railway.
The offer to pump more than $60 billion into the Provisional Airport Authority and the Mass Transit Railway Corporation to facilitate an early agreement with Beijing on the projects was endorsed by the Executive Council yesterday.
Details of the multi-billion-dollar bid to kick-start the vast infrastructure plan were revealed exclusively in the South China Morning Post.
Governor Chris Patten said the new offer, discussed during a three-hour session of Exco, would address all Chinese concerns, given the healthy state of Hong Kong's reserves.
''I hope that [China] would find this an excellent Lunar New Year present for Hong Kong, for China, for everyone,'' Mr Patten said.
Chinese sources welcomed the prospect of a much bigger level of capital investment in the two corporations by the Government and a Hong Kong affairs adviser, Tsang Yok-shing, added a note of optimism.
Mr Tsang returned from Beijing after presenting Chinese officials with proposals from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong that require the territory to inject $90 billion of the $99.2 billion total cost of the two projects.