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SCMP Reporter

Cruise terminal will turn area into dead zone
The government has announced that it will spend HK$7.2 billion to construct a cruise terminal at Kai Tak. Add to this the HK$2 billion already budgeted for site work plus additional costs that will be factored into other budgets and the total cost will probably exceed HK$10 billion.
Unfortunately the admirable Monitor columnist Jake van der Kamp is no longer here to put this outlay into perspective, but even a cursory look at the figures raises eyebrows.
Cruise operator Massimo Brancaleoni indicates that it takes 20 to 25 years to recover costs ('Plan wins support, but price tag an issue', October 1).
Based on a 25-year recoup period this means that the annual rental fee would need to be around HK$400 million, more than HK$35 million per month. Perhaps some of your readers in the property sector could advise if this rental is feasible.
The number of jobs a cruise terminal will generate is also questionable. Most cruise ships sail during the night and berth early morning. The tourists are  bussed around to local attractions. Most meals are taken and shopping done on board.
A cruise terminal at Kai Tak would be far removed from any sizeable shopping mall, unlike Ocean Terminal with its vast array of temptations.
There would therefore be little reason for the tourists to hang around so the terminal would sustain only modest services such as convenience and small gift stores and a coffee shop. Furthermore, because of the risk of typhoons, cruise trips in this region have to be  seasonal so employment opportunities would tend to be of a temporary nature.
Our property developers and cruise operators have shown little interest in this project indicating that they see few commercial opportunities in its location.
The presence of a cruise terminal and mini airport, as per the artist's impression, at the southern end of the Kai Tak strip, will effectively deny Hong Kong people the opportunity of enjoying what should be one of the most scenic spots on our harbour.
Our legislators must question if the HK$10 billion would not be better spent on building vibrant marina-themed recreational facilities for locals and tourists that would recoup the original investment, guarantee year-round revenue and generate numerous full-time employment opportunities rather than create a dead zone in the centre of our harbour.
Mary Melville, Tsim Sha Tsui
Why we need fair wage law
Canada's Fraser Institute recently reassured our 'leaders' that Hong Kong remained the freest economy worldwide, but warned the advent of fair wage legislation would undermine that.
Now business people warn that the declining economy threatens low-paid jobs and a minimum wage would cause unemployment. How considerate. The hazards we all face in future are many, but  fair wage legislation is not one. Far more threatening is the monopoly of predatory debt-driven economic theory salivating over us like a sickened tyrannosaur. Free-market economics champions competition, but, strangely, not in relation to itself.
A theory that denies its central tenet is both theoretically as well as morally bankrupt.
A plethora of economic systems like ecological diversity, improves opportunity, variety, creativity, solutions and options, producing more robust and vibrant markets less vulnerable under failure. Hong Kong must not remain a dinosaur and should not be ruled any longer by this 1950s experiment that has clearly failed yet again.
Those still championing Freidmanism are modern Romanovs. Instead of free-markets the people of Hong Kong are demanding fair markets, and a minimum wage law would be a good place to start. Those objecting should review their history.
Richard Fielding, Pok Fu Lam
Regulations are inevitable
I disagree with Alex Lo in the Observer column ('True cost of worshipping false profits', October 2) that Hong Kong is less  of a believer in 'freedom' of its enterprise, trade and markets as an ideology,  than the US.
The  Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation would also disagree.   They regularly rate the city as the world's freest economy.  I am not proud of such dubious accolades when the price   is environmental degradation with foul air, a shrinking harbour and  unhealthy urban density.  This is the  practice of the single-minded ideology of making money. Such an ideology needs a free economy to survive.
I foresee that Hong Kong  will  soon no longer be dubbed the freest economy. No place or nation  can let  run an economy  without regulation.
John Yuan, Beijing
Bottled water a marketing con
I read Peter Forsythe's letter about water imported from Australia being promoted in Discovery Bay (Talkback, September 29).
As your correspondent rightly says, this global transshipment of massive amounts of H{-2}O and plastic is an environmental disaster - and  waste of money.
It is nothing short of a marketing con job. People in Hong Kong go along with the scam in their millions, and without as much as a perfunctory look at the Hong Kong government's water website, which gives full details on the quality of our potable water, which is well ahead of the World Health Organisation's international standards for high-quality drinking water.
To import water from anywhere is ridiculous, but from Australia - the world's driest continent outside of Antarctica - it is indeed insanity.
Australia is in a terrible decade-long drought and still makes a wholly irrational case for growing rice and cotton, two of the most water-thirsty crops on Earth.  According to Fred Pearce in his recent book When the Rivers Run Dry, you could fill 25 bathtubs with the water needed to grow the cotton for one T-shirt.
Peter Sherwood, Discovery Bay
Get tough with food companies
The tainted milk scandal has highlighted a  serious problem with food safety on the mainland.
The central government must set up a new and reliable monitoring system or there will be further scandals.  It must also increase the penalties for those producers found guilty of putting ingredients into food which put people at risk.
A well-off firm might pay a moderate fine easily. Therefore companies must be charged a huge amount and made to compensate the victims.
Hopefully better monitoring and heavier fines will deter firms from breaking the law.
Tommy Wong, Kwai Chung
Wrong attitude to countryside
The government encourages us to get fit, yet on Hatton Road, in Lung Fu Shan Country Park, the exercise area has been blocked off for repair for almost a year. On the other side of the path,   railings have been put up,  even though there is no risk of falling off.
Instead of the rus in urbe that enlightened civic leaders have sought for centuries, our administrators prefer to bring the city into the countryside while at the same time exercising, not us, but their mania for control and unnecessary spending.
And then they wonder why we feel cheated of our right to a pleasant and clean environment.
Paul Serfaty, Mid-Levels



Letters