Hong Kong--Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway
Corporation is launching a property development program valued at more than $10 billion,
or HK $80 billion, along four stops of the eight-mile Tseung Kwan O extension now under
construction.
The six-station extension will be finished in 2002. The massive project, totaling
nearly 25 million square feet, will run over a period of 10 years and produce up to 28,651
apartments, 1.11 million square feet of office space, and 1.42 million square feet of
retail shops. Private developers will bid for it in 23 separate packages; the tender for
the first three residential towers is expected to be awarded by the end of the year, with
the rest to follow over the next six to seven years.
When the project is fully underway, after the turn of the century, between 4,000 and
5,000 new units are expected to come on the market every year. This will further add to
the profitability of the MTRC, which currently owns and manages some 29,000 apartments and
about four million square meters of office and commercial space. Real estate revenues
contribute almost 20 percent to the bottom line of the transit company.
The projected partial privatization of the MTRC over the next couple of years, with
shares available to investors on the Hong Kong and other stock exchanges, is expected to
raise the equivalent of another $3.9 billion (HK $30 billion) for the world's most
profitable metropolitan rail property. The Hong Kong government will remain the majority
shareholder.
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