Letters | Hong Kong is set to soar with Zhuhai airport move

Bernard Chan wrote last week of the Hong Kong government’s plan to expand Zhuhai airport (“Why Hong Kong aviation is going to come back stronger”, December 4).

At Logie Group, I advise on infrastructure finance in Asia and I welcome these plans. There has long been a need to coordinate the five airports in the Greater Bay Area. Amid this inertia, Zhuhai has been so underutilised that it has been able to close to the public when it holds its biennial air show.

Investing in Zhuhai would involve some cooperation between the three governments in the Greater Bay Area, but it would cost a fraction of the HK$155 billion (US$20 billion) they lavished on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge or the more than HK$140 billion budgeted by the Hong Kong government for the third runway at Chek Lap Kok.

Just as the London Docklands and Manhattan’s Seaport were converted into waterfront real estate years ago, Hong Kong’s maritime cargo could be relocated to where it comes from – Shenzhen – and Kwai Tsing converted into much-needed real estate more cheaply and years ahead of that other white elephant, Lantau Tomorrow Vision.