Hong Kong's Legislative Council failed on Saturday to vote on an extra HK$19.6 billion ($2.5 billion) for the region's high-speed rail link with Guangzhou, media reported on Saturday.

For fear the project might be scrapped for lack of funds after delays over the past six years, the president and chief executive of Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and Hong Kong's Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung Bing-leung will meet on Monday, the Xin-

hua News Agency on Saturday quoted Cheung as saying.

Cheung said they will assess the situation and determine if the project has to be temporarily suspended, Xinhua said.

Approved by the Hong Kong government in 2010, the HK$65 billion allocated to the rail link will dry up by June 2016, with 70 percent of the project having been completed. The MTR is required to inform the contractor three months in advance if more funds will be available to proceed with construction.

Construction of the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link started in April 2010, and was expected to be completed in August 2015. In April 2014, MTR announced that due to bad weather, construction will be delayed until 2016. However, in November 2015, construction was further pushed back to 2018.

Earlier this month, an opposition filibuster scuttled deliberations on an additional HK$19.6 billion for the project, the China News Service (CNS) reported.

Cheung said the suspension in construction or the contract's termination will cost more. If the construction is terminated, Cheung said it may require two to three years to invite bids and restart, which means an extra HK$28.2 billion. Some Hong Kong members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Guangdong Provincial Committee said the region's economy would suffer from a delay in the project's completion, CNS said in January. Hong Kong media have criticized the opposition's repeated delay tactics, saying these would have a negative effect, Xinhua reported on Tuesday.