960427

China okays

and runway for

new HK airport

HONG KONG: China has given the go-ahead for a second runway at Hong Kong's new international airport -- a project forecast to become overcrowded as soon as it opens in April 1998.

The move was backed by Lu Ping, China's senior official presiding over the British colony's reversion to mainland rule in mid-1997, during talks in Beijing late on Friday with Hong Kong policy makers.

Hong Kong's chief civil servant, Anson Chan, told reporters after the meeting that she had raised the issue with Lu, during efforts by both sides to appease growing uneasiness in the colony over transitional issues.

"Mr Lu indicated to me that the Chinese side has no problem with the second runway," Chan said.

Lu had suggested that the Hong Kong government first brief China's handpicked committee preparing for the 1997 handover, she added.

China, which regains sovereignty of Hong Kong at midnight on June 30, 1997, must approve any project that straddles the handover.

But political wrangling between Britain and China over the political future of Hong Kong has already delayed approval of the HK$60 billion Chek Lap Kok airport beyond its original opening date of June 1997.

Travel industry experts consider a second runway at Chek Lap Kok crucial, and have predicted that the project will have reached its capacity even by the time it opens.

Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport, on a narrow strip of land jutting out of the crowded Kowloon peninsula, is already considered to have reached capacity.-Reuter