Jake's View | Let’s not kid ourselves: money on Hong Kong’s high-speed rail can be better spent elsewhere

The transport chief yesterday gave an optimistic financial outlook for the controversial HK$84.4 billion high-speed rail link to the mainland, saying it would turn a profit in 50 years, though he gave no figures to back this up.

-- SCMP City, January 30

I know that a good number of people will wrinkle their noses at this talk of the profit potential of the new high speed rail link.

It is the wrong way of looking at things, they will say. This is not a capitalist venture. We did not build this railway to make a profit. We built it as a social service to provide people with rapid rail connections to Guangzhou and the mainland’s high speed rail system.

But if you must look at it in money terms, they will say, then time is money in business and shorter travel times will thus help business, which will be good for the economy of Hong Kong. It is therefore a worthwhile project.

I don’t buy it.

The difficulty with this line of reasoning is that when you spend money on anything you have to ask yourself whether the purchase you are considering will bring you greater benefit than something else you can buy. It is as much a question at the level of government as it is for personal expenditure.