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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, after attending the Hong Kong Airlines Aviation Training Centre Ground-breaking Ceremony at the Hong Kong International Airport today (March 9):
Reporter: Regarding the group said the construction is to be shelved because of the flight path in the Shenzhen and Macau, what is your response to this?
Secretary for Transport and Housing: As far as the airspace is concerned, there has been ongoing discussion among the three jurisdictions, mainly the Mainland civil aviation authorities, the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department, and the Macau civil aviation administration. There is a plan which was agreed by the three sides in 2007, as to how to enhance coordination and management of the airspace over the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Under the 2007 plan, there are short-term, medium-term and long-term objectives for such enhancement. We are now proceeding smoothly through technical discussions as to how to implement those measures which are to be conducted, to be introduced in order to achieve the objectives. So far the dialogue has been very positive, actually recently there was a meeting. So the three sides remain committed to achieving those objectives. The optimisation of the PRD airspace is very important to all airports in the region. Unless we are able to achieve optimisation, the expansion of various airports within the PRD will be affected.
Reporter: When will the construction start? What month? What date?
Secretary for Transport and Housing: The Airport Authority is taking forward the three-runway project. At the moment there are still some procedural issues to be resolved. So once those issues are resolved, then of course the Airport Authority will start the actual works.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Issued at HKT 13:34
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