Andrew writes in today’s South China Morning Post: Gary Lai writes today (12 April) that HK can learn from New York City when it comes to making HK more pedestrian friendly; and in using Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to do so. I advise on infrastructure finance including PPPs and I disagree on both counts. First, […]

A few weeks ago, whilst the UK was preoccupied with what Gary Lineker should or should not be allowed to say – ten out of seventeen minutes of the BBC news bulletin on 12 March were devoted to it –  elsewhere the somewhat more expensive PR, and perhaps actual, disaster that is the UK’s HS2 […]

This paper from EY re HK housing Mar 23 is welcome and should, as intended, start – or, better, expand – a broader debate on how HK’s Northern Metropolis in particular can address the longstanding housing shortages in Hong Kong. To which I would add: The NM will in due course provide perhaps 186,000 housing […]

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Belt & Road Initiative yet only yesterday has an outsider analysis of its cost to China been assembled. BRI has long been opaque; big, albeit that, not being centrally coordinated or even defined, no one agrees on how big (the American Enterprise Institute reckons a comparatively modest $838 […]

At the G20 meeting in Bali in November, Indonesia undertook to i) cap annual CO2 emissions from the power sector at 290 megatons by 2030 (seven years earlier than previously) ii) be producing 34% of that power from renewables by the same year iii) have the whole power sector hit net zero by 2050. In return, the […]

The UNECE has published its latest thoughts on how the private sector can be brought in to build and operate much – needed Waste to Energy plants or, in full, its Guidelines on Public-Private Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals in Waste-to-Energy Projects for Non-Recyclable Waste: Pathways towards a Circular Economy. Andrew was acknowledged as […]

Like any traditional tale woven by Wayang Kulit, the messaging from the recent G20 meeting in Nusa Dua looked straightforward enough whilst masking any number of mysteries still to be resolved. The headlines were that: The International Partners Group, a group of wealthy nations led by the US and Japan (think of them as the […]

Good to be back In Real Life as a guest of the HK Trade Development Council at their summit on the Belt & Road Initiative last week. Interviewed by Xinhua then China Daily, I stressed my recent writings that, if the G7 might now be putting up money to rival China’s BRI, then host governments […]

The first of several proposals to cross Hong Kong harbour was for a bridge in 1902 (!). The first to be actually built was the Cross Harbour Tunnel which opened to traffic fifty years ago today. (Later, it was formally opened on 21 October by Princess Alexandra who, it was reported, sported a nice white […]

Reliable sources at Schloss Elmau tell me that most of the talk at the meeting of the G7 and friends last month was on What To Do About Russia? but there was at least one item on What To Do About China? The US had a proposal for a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment […]

This recently from Visual Capitalist shows the World’s ten largest gold mines by production operating today. Perhaps the most unusual is Lihir in PNG in that it started life back in 1995 as a project financing of considerable daring. Features included: Significant dewatering issues in that the open pit was to be dug in a […]

Lost in the excitement of the Chief Executive election in Hong Kong last week was the news that the Environmental Protection Dept had approved an amendment to a proposal by HK Electric to build a 150 MW wind farm off the south west coast of Lamma island.  Tendering for the wind farm will start in […]

Logie Group has long argued that, instead of separating every day life in Hong Kong from its iconic harbour, HK should embrace it by expanding water – borne transport across the harbour and along its shoreline. A water taxi service therefore sounded promising. LegCo’s Finance Committee meets today to review the ongoing subsidies for this. […]

Writing to the SCMP over the weekend, Exasperated of Mid – Levels explained how Hong Kong can lift all Covid restrictions yet stay consistent with Mainland policy. The following day, Carrie Lam announced that she will not seek re-election. Unfortunately my letter (scroll down to “How to open up while remaining aligned with mainland”) was […]

Mainland China’s first high – speed rail Public Private Partnership opened for business last month. Built at a cost of ¥45 billion / US$7.1 billion under a 30 – year concession,  it is now serving nine stations between Hangzhou – Shaoxing – Taizhou in Zhejiang province with trains traveling at up to 350 kph over […]