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Following is the speech by the acting Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, Mr Patrick Lau, at the signing ceremony of land grant documents for Container Terminal No. 9(CT9) today (Tuesday):

Ladies and gentlemen,

There are many among us who thought we would never see this day but the perseverance by the three members of the consortium and a willingness of many of my colleagues to facilitate and be flexible have finally brought us to this happy occasion today.

CT9 is a very complicated project, involving not only many difficult technical issues but also complex commercial negotiations among the parties concerned. I must congratulate the efforts made by all three operators in reaching agreement on the detailed arrangement for the construction of the terminal and the allocation of the berths, to enable the land grants to be signed today.

The construction of CT9 is important to Hong Kong not only because it will provide sufficient capacity to meet the long-term demand of our container port, but it will also enable us to rationalise the allocation of the terminals at Kwai Chung.

Following the rationalisation of the berths as part of the CT9 deal, there will be more contiguous berths at Kwai Chung, giving the operators more flexibility and capability to handle the larger container vessels being built by the international shipping lines.

CT9 is a very important part of our port development strategy to maintain our competitiveness and strengthen our position as an international container hub port. As part of the project, Rambler Channel, the main access channel to all the terminals at the Kwai Chung Container Port, will be dredged to -15.5 metre water depth, enabling Hong Kong to handle the next generation of container vessels which will carry more than 8,000 containers each.

The construction of CT9 will create over 1,500 jobs. The actual number will be more because there will be many new employment opportunities created in those trades which operate around the container terminal, such as container lorry drivers, container depot operators and barge operators etc.

The three operators will together invest more than $10 billion in the project in the next five years. These are very major companies with a long history and a lot of experience in Hong Kong. The building of CT9 is a clear demonstration of their commitment to Hong Kong and their confidence in the long-term prospect of our container port and economy.

The project involves forming 140 hectares of land along the east side of Tsing Yi Island. On completion 70 hectares will be held by the developers for the construction of CT9. The remaining area will be handed back to the Government for the provision of roads and container back-up facilities to address the overcrowding problem in Kwai Chung.

The new terminal will have six berths and a design capacity to handle 2.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units of containers a year and will be able to cope with forecast growth in demand of the Hong Kong Container Port.

We expect construction work to begin in mid-1999 with the first berth of the new terminal coming into operation in 2002. The remaining berths will come into operation thereafter at intervals of five or six months. The timing is in accordance with the forecast requirements of the Hong Kong Port and Maritime Board.

I am very pleased to witness the signing of the land grant documents. This marks many years of hard work by all parties in arriving at these complicated legal documents. My thanks go out to all concerned and I am very pleased to be a party to a major infrastructural project that will serve Hong Kong in the new millennium.

Thank you.

End/Tuesday, December 8, 1998

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