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SCMP Reporter

HONG KONG'S long-awaited rail development study is expected to provoke fresh disputes with China when it is published within the next few weeks.

  Secretary for Transport Haider Barma revealed the Chinese Joint Liaison Group (JLG) team had been briefed on the study last Thursday.

  'The Executive Council has approved the new railway strategy and we hope it will be published very shortly,' he said, on his return from Beijing last night.

  The study proposes spending more than $40 billion on building two priority lines by 2001: a rail link across the north-west New Territories from Kowloon to the Lok Ma Chau border crossing, and an extension of the mass transit railway to Tseung Kwan O.

  Shenzhen has already objected to the planned Lok Ma Chau link, saying traffic is too heavy for them to build a connecting rail line on their side of the crossing. They want the Hong Kong line to be moved to connect with a proposed bridge from Shekou to Yuen Long.

  But Mr Barma insisted last night linking up with Shenzhen was not the main point of the Hong Kong Government's plan.

  'The emphasis of the railway strategy is about Hong Kong, about serving the north-west New Territories and linking it up with Kowloon,' he said. 'While cross-border linkage is important, that is not the whole emphasis of the strategy.'   Hong Kong officials said those who did use the new line to cross the border could transfer to cars or minibuses on the Chinese side, and there was no need for Shenzhen to build a connecting rail link.

  Their comments appeared to be an attempt to avoid giving China the chance to veto the railway strategy through the new Sino-British Co-ordinating Committee on Major Cross-Border Infrastructure between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland, which was officially inaugurated in Beijing yesterday.

  The British team leader to the committee, Tony Eason, admitted on his return to Hong Kong last night it had been agreed cross-border projects would only go ahead with the approval of both sides.

  'There must be a common view on how these projects will be when they straddle the border,' he said. But Mr Eason said the railway strategy had not been formally discussed during their two days of talks in Beijing, although it had been mentioned informally.

  Nor does he expect it to be top of the agenda when the new committee holds its first meeting in Guangzhou early next year. Mr Eason said the focus would instead be on extensive briefings on planning exercises which were already underway.

  However, Xinhua (New China News Agency) deputy director Qin Wenjun said last night the Hong Kong Government's railway proposals had to be discussed by the new body.



$40b rail plan likely to cause row with China