Hong Kong Airport dividend payout of HK$5.3 billion raises eyebrows
Operator paid record sum to the government, even as it struggles to find cash for new runway likely to be city's costliest infrastructure project
Questions have arisen over the Airport Authority's dividend policy after it paid a record HK$5.3 billion to its sole shareholder, the Hong Kong government.
Compared with last year's payout, the sum represents a rise of 20.5 per cent - a higher rate than the 14 per cent net profit growth to HK$6.4 billion the authority reported yesterday.
With the latest dividend, the government has pocketed about HK$29 billion since 2003, the year it started recouping its capital injection of HK$36.6 billion into the authority that put Chek Lap Kok airport into operation in 1998.
Stanley Hui Hon-chung, the authority's outgoing chief executive, sidestepped questions on whether the payout should be lowered in order to strengthen the operator's finances.
"It is a decision of the authority's board," Hui said, referring to the 17-member governing organ on which the highest-ranking government official is Secretary for Transport and Housing Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung.
The authority said the financing plan for the third airport runway would not be ready before the end of the year.
