Billion-dollar dividend plan to help pay for third runway at Hong Kong airport
Authority proposes withholding payments or adding passenger surcharge to finance expansion at Chek Lap Kok airport
The Airport Authority might stop paying billions of dollars in dividends to the government to help finance the third runway at Chek Lap Kok.
The proposal is one of a number of options submitted to the government by the authority to help meet the estimated HK$136 billion cost of the most expensive construction project since the handover. Others include imposing an additional surcharge on passengers and issuing bonds.
"The principle [of deciding on which options to adopt] would be asking stakeholders to share the cost together," a person familiar with the situation said. "It is also unavoidable for the government to pay a portion of it."
According to the authority's annual reports, the authority paid a record dividend of HK$5.3 billion to its sole shareholder - the Hong Kong government - in the last financial year, up from HK$4.4 billion in 2012/13.
The sum represents an increase of 20.5 per cent, a higher rate than the 14 per cent net profit growth to HK$6.4 billion recorded in the same year.
With the latest dividend, the government has received a total of about HK$29 billion since 2003, the year it started recouping its capital injection of HK$36.6 billion into the authority that put the airport into operation in 1998.