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Finance statemate delaying railway

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THE airport railway will not be ready until autumn 1997 at the earliest and the opening date is delayed one day for every day that goes by without a finance agreement between Britain and China, the Mass Transit Railway said yesterday.

In the MTR's annual report released last night, chairman Hamish Mathers said the need for the railway ''is becoming extremely acute'' because of the relief it would bring to the crowded Nathan Road corridor.

In a tacit admission that on some rush hour mornings on the Nathan Road corridor last year the MTR was carrying more people than it was designed for, the report said the number of passengers had been ''contained at about the tolerable level''.

But the airport railway would not be operational in June 1997, as had originally been planned, and would now open in two phases instead of at once.

The section of railway between Central and Kowloon would be operational in April 1998, said Mr Mathers.

The report said this was because of the ''substantial delay'' in government funding for the Central reclamation project.

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