7,000 jobs could be lost if Hong Kong high-speed rail link is suspended, says MTRC boss
Frederick Ma also says Hong Kong’s reputation would be badly tarnished if lawmakers do not approve extra funding
The MTR Corporation chairman has warned that up to 7,000 people in the construction industry will lose their jobs and Hong Kong’s international reputation will be jeopardised if the high-speed rail link to the mainland is suspended.
Frederick Ma Si-hang’s warning came as a study by the Construction Industry Alliance released on Wednesday estimated that up to 20 per cent of the 400,000 employees in the sector could be thrown out of work if the pan-democrats do not stop blocking the approval of infrastructure projects.
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Lawrence Ng San-wa, president of the Hong Kong Construction Sub-contractors Association, said: “Taking into account the family members of these affected employees, the affected people would be as much as 1.4 million.”
In an interview with the South China Morning Post on Wednesday, Ma said between 5,000 and 7,000 workers and engineers would lose their jobs if the city’s section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong rail link stopped in its tracks.
There are about 100 imported workers at different sites of the Hong Kong section of the express rail link.
“It would deal a serious blow to Hong Kong’s international reputation as the city has never seen the abandonment of any major infrastructure projects,” he said.
Ma, who was involved in the construction of Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok in the 1990s when he worked for a building and civil works company, said international contractors might “give Hong Kong a bad name” if the project was abandoned.
“It would be disastrous to let it happen,” he said.
The government hopes to persuade the Legislative Council to approve HK$19.6 billion in extra funding by next month. Almost exactly the same amount should eventually be recouped through a special dividend to be paid by the MTR.
If the Finance Committee rejects the funding request, the 26km railway line linking West Kowloon to the border will come to a halt at an estimated loss of HK$4.8 billion.
The cost of resuming the project later could be HK$28.2 billion, resulting in an extra cost of HK$33 billion.
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If the project is abandoned, the government estimates the upfront cost would be HK$10.6 billion.
On February 1, MTR shareholders will vote on an agreementto pay the government HK$19.51 billion in a special dividend.
Ma said he was confident that the deal would be endorsed at the meeting as two proxy voting advisers advised institutional investors on Tuesday to accept the agreement between the government and the MTR.
Ma, who is on good terms with many pan-democratic lawmakers, said he did not pin great hope on legislators switching sides on the funding request.
“I just want Legco to make a decision as soon as possible,” he said.
He said the subcommittee had so far scrutinised only five out of 72 projects. This means less than 10 per cent of the HK$67.5 billion funds needed for all these projects had been approved.
According to the MTR, the express rail project is now about 75 per cent completed. Remaining work includes rail tracks, electrical and mechanical works and the roof structure at the West Kowloon terminus.
Now aged 63, Ma joined the MTR in 2013 as an independent non-executive director. He succeeded Dr Raymond Chien Kuo-fung as chairman of the rail operator this year.
Ma served as secretary for financial services and the treasury from 2002 to 2007. He then served as secretary for commerce and economic development before leaving the government in 2008 for health reasons.
The government is a majority shareholder in the MTR with a 76 per cent stake.
Additional reporting by Allen Au-yeung and Joyce Ng
