On February 18, China’s State Council laid out its plan for the “Greater Bay Area”, naming Hong Kong as one of the key cities in the new economic hub (“China’s State Council reveals details of Greater Bay Area plan”, February 19). The Greater Bay Area blueprint notes that “Hong Kong lacks sustainable and stable support” for economic development and mentions the “constraints on resources” in the region. In Hong Kong, one of these constraints is a shortage of space for development.Currently, Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people live and work in only 276 square kilometres of land. Hong Kong’s Task Force on Land Supply believes the shortage of land is “urgent and dire”. The Greater Bay Area can play a role here.The recently released blueprint asks Hong Kong, Guangdong and Macau to “promote coordinated regional economic development”.
The measures suggested include developing “enclave economies” to facilitate “relocation of industries in the pan-[Pearl River Delta] region”, “national innovation demonstration zones”, “national hi-tech development zones” and “an industrial belt for advanced equipment manufacturing”. All these address Hong Kong’s need for land, while easing the flow of resources.
Proposals for such cooperation are not new. On January 27, 2018, Chen Yiwei, Huizhou’s then-municipal party secretary, said at a meeting of the 13th National People’s Congress of Guangdong province: “Huizhou hopes to cooperate with Hong Kong through making full use of Hong Kong’s innovative resources and Huizhou’s industry advantages, and, therefore, building special cooperation zones to create a highland of innovative industries.” Cheng Yiu-tong, a Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress, last year proposed renting 30 square kilometres of land in Huizhou to build housing for 600,000 Hongkongers while implementing Hong Kong laws.In September 2018, Jacinto Tong Man-leung, CEO of Gale Well Group, said the development of the Greater Bay Area could alleviate the land supply shortage in Hong Kong.With regional integration, people from the mainland working in Hong Kong could settle in the cities nearby, while Hongkongers could also consider moving to other cities.
As the Greater Bay Area will gradually dissolve the traditional boundary between Hong Kong and the mainland, Hong Kong will have more land to choose from.
Tianchu Li, Kennedy Town
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