Taipei Times: There has been much speculation in the media that nagging delays on the high speed rail project may push back its launch date of October 2005. Is there any truth to these reports?
Nita Ing (殷琪) : At this moment 2005 is definitely our target. I think there's nothing within this organization, nothing between us and the government that's even being discussed as causing possible delays to the project. We have a master schedule for the project and we're still basically tracking all activities according to that schedule.
TT: Are there any reasons to believe that the project may be delayed for several months to half a year?
Ing: There are many issues that we're concerned about [but] those are normal for a project of this size. We don't say we are not expecting a delay, we're just saying there's no reason for us to expect that and we're still on the master schedule. Presently all of our civil work is delayed. Some by three months, some by four months and some maybe even more than that. But we have very good confidence that by spring next year the work will pick up.
The reasons for the delays are several. One is internal. This is a very new company and all of our people -- especially the people who come from other countries -- have come in here trying to work within a system that has developed as it goes along.
The other thing is our contractors. I think all our contractors are good and responsible, but they're all joint ventures. Most of them have had working experience together but never on such a grand scale project. The time it takes for them to work together and to mobilize within themselves also causes some delay. The other is contractors have to work with another entity -- consultants -- which is something that Taiwan-ese contractors are not familiar with. The consultants are not only the designers of the infrastructure, they are also supervisors and auditors who ensure the project is being carried on the right way. So there are different mentalities between contractors and consultants. To get them to establish a method of working together took some time because of the nature of the project.
Another major reason goes back to the 921 earthquake. The quake set us back approximately two months in terms of the government deciding whether or not high-speed rail or infrastructure specifications had to be reregulated. At the end of the day the government decided that the high-speed rail was sustainable.
TT: In June Taiwan High Speed Railway Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) postponed boosting its capital until Septem-ber due to the state of the econ-omy. Have you been able to raise the money in the time since and how much more difficult did the nation's economic situation make this task?
Ing: As of Sept. 12 all the money was to be in -- NT$499 billion. This year and next year one of our biggest challenges is to raise capital. Next year we need to raise NT$18 billion. There was a lot of speculation among local media that we were going to be in financial trouble because we were not going to be able to raise the capital for this year. We lowered the amount, but basically it's substantial enough for us to carry on the project until the next capitalization towards the end of next year.
Looking forward, we are approaching many new possible shareholders, such as government enterprises that can strategically contribute to THSRC. We're in the process of discussing this with them and also some firms in the private sector. But we know it will be very difficult for new shareholders in the private sector to come in because not everyone's investing.
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