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Lai Ying-kit

The original estimate on the progress of Hong Kong’s cross-border high-speed rail link to mainland China in 2009 had been too idealistic, Secretary for Transport and Housing Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung admitted today.
The MTR Corporation reported last Tuesday that the project cost had ballooned by about 30 per cent, to HK$85.3 billion, and that new challenges had further delayed its opening to 2018.
The opening of the project, originally scheduled for this year, had earlier been pushed back to the end of 2017.
Cheung said today he believed the entrustment agreement for the project was drawn up with good intentions by planners based on a “comparatively idealistic” estimate on the project’s progress.

“That is, if things would go smoothly, one after one in good coordination ... and if the MTR would manage contractors well, first there should not be any unforeseeable and serious delay,” he said during a DBC radio talk show.
“And, second, there would not be so many claims [for delays],” he said.
The transport minister added after the talk show that the Transport and Housing Bureau would meet the MTR this week to ask about its latest estimates on delay and construction cost.
Cheung said the Highways Department would study latest estimates given by the MTR and assess if there was a need to grant the rail operator HK$2.1 billion and a six-month period as contingency.


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High-speed rail link to mainland China too idealistic from the start, Hong Kong transport minister admits

Delays to the project, including at the under-construction West Kowloon terminus, have seen completion pushed back to 2018. Photo: Felix Wong

Anthony Cheung believed estimates for the project had been too idealistic. Photo: David Wong

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