Chapter 634 - CUHK Speech (II)
"Hong Kong's economic level is getting worse and worse from south to north! The Yuen Long and Tuen Mun areas in the northwest of the New Territories, driven by the emerging electronics industry, have begun to rapidly move closer to the urban areas.
Now only the northeastern part of the New Territories remains, this last isolated island! The Governor's 'Rose Garden Project' is obviously intended to take advantage of the opportunity of building a new airport to develop Lantau Island around the expressway and subway from the city to the airport!
However, Lantau itself is not only deserted, but also has almost no direct access to flat land, and even airport land will be mainly obtained through large-scale reclamation!
Taking the new town to be built in the middle of Tung Chung in the first phase of the plan as an example, apart from the two public housing estates invested by the government, none of the real estate developers have announced a follow-up! Now the question arises, in addition to the basic three links and one leveling and the cost of building buildings, should public services such as fire stations and police stations follow up?
You can't just have to send fire trucks from the city dozens of kilometers away after a fire breaks out in Tung Chung? In that case, by the time the firefighters arrive, it is estimated that everything that should have been burned has already been burned!
And just for the sake of two public housing houses and a population of more than 10,000, the number of firefighters and police officers has been increased, and Hong Kong citizens have so much tax money that they have no place to spend it?
Some people may come out and refute me by saying that the total planned area of the entire Lantau New Town is 830 hectares, and the total population will be more than 300,000 when completed!
In 1972, the Hong Kong Governor's Office, in conjunction with the Executive Council, passed a large-scale housing plan to build new homes that could provide housing for 2 million people by the mid-80s.
Everyone says that Hong Kong should speed up the process of democratization! Well, in a democratic-dominated society, there must always be someone to act as the opposition! I am here today to boldly provide a new idea for development to the Hong Kong authorities and all citizens who are concerned about Hong Kong's future!
The focus of Hong Kong's development in the next 10 to 20 years should revolve around the northeastern New Territories! Along the Hong Kong side of the Jiehe River, from west to east, from Kwu Tung North and Fanling North to Ping Che and Ta Kwu Ling, there are large areas of undeveloped flat land and low and gentle slopes of the Loop.
I have roughly estimated that the area of this area is at least 25 square kilometers! You must know that the total area of the entire Kowloon Peninsula is only 47 square kilometers, and the population of the Kowloon city is as high as 2 million!
Kowloon is the old city of Hong Kong, and the land utilization rate in places such as Sham Shui Shek, Mong Kok, and Yau Ma Tei is very low, and most of the residential buildings are still five or six storey old buildings!
So according to my imagination, if this undeveloped area is well planned, it will not only accommodate more than 1 million people, but also reserve a large area of industrial land!"
While Li Xuan was talking, the four staff members brought up a huge background board, and he gently removed the curtain covering it, and a colorful effect of high-rise buildings was directly displayed in front of the audience!
"Compared with the development of Lantau Island, in addition to the lower development cost, the North New Territories has two other huge advantages! First, the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people living in the North of the New Territories can share the huge dividends brought by Hong Kong's urbanization process at the same time!
They can get the same convenient and efficient public services as the citizens of the central city! At the same time, urban development and industrial planning can also bring a large number of employment opportunities, narrow the income gap between the New Territories and the city, and promote social equity!
Compared to Lantau Island, where birds don't poop, Hong Kong real estate groups are much more interested in investing in the New Territories! As far as I know, many real estate companies began to quietly buy a large amount of agricultural land from the aborigines of the New Territories as early as the late 70s!
Of course, the land deeds they get are all agricultural land that cannot be used for commercial development. But as long as the compensation standard for land price set by the Hong Kong government is not outrageous, real estate companies are willing to convert their land deeds into commercial land!
In this way, the Hong Kong government will not only need to focus on infrastructure investment such as water, electricity and transportation in the early stage of development, but also recover part of the cost from the land payment paid by the real estate company to alleviate the financial pressure!
From a longer-term perspective, Hong Kong's future development opportunities are already in the north! July 1 this year has passed, which means that Hong Kong is less than seven years away from returning to China! The Hong Kong governor and 50,000 Hong Kong elites can pat themselves on the back and return to Britain after the Ninth and Seventh National Limits!
What is the way out for the 6 million Hong Kong citizens who have remained in Hong Kong after '97? The atmosphere in Hong Kong is very strange now, and it seems that it is trying every means to show that it is different! Our economy is more developed, and our politics are more democratic!
Well, we are indeed developed, we are indeed democratic, but so what! I remember that this year marks the 65th anniversary of the May Day Massacre and the Shaki Massacre. After so many years, which Governor of Hong Kong has the courage to stand up and apologize to the Shanghai students who died tragically at gunpoint in the British Patrol House 65 years ago, and the citizens of Guangzhou, who died tragically at the gunpoint of the British army?
I would like to tell you that the world of children is divided into right and wrong, and the world of adults is only pros and cons! Britain is about to become a thing of the past for us, and our new family will only be China!
But we haven't had time to actually go home yet, and we can't wait to throw all kinds of faces in front of our families. It seems that only by doing this can you ensure that you will not be bullied when you return home!
This is not the typical persecution paranoia, what else could it be?
Hong Kong's opportunities are really good, the mainland is carrying out reform and opening up, and China, which has just opened its door, is full of opportunities! Compared with the ghosts who do not understand the written and spoken language, we undoubtedly have an innate advantage in the same kind and language!
It can be said that over the past few years, the Hong Kong people who have dared to go north have basically made a fortune! After a big country with a population of 1.2 billion and 9.6 million square kilometers is on the right track, the huge development dividends created by it are enough for the whole of Hong Kong to survive!
You only need to check the growth data of Hong Kong's entrepot trade in the past 10 years to be sure that what I am saying is by no means a lie! With such a huge opportunity in front of us, shouldn't we embrace it?
What is the future of Hong Kong? I don't want to deal with the political turmoil, and based on my personal business experience in the past 10 years, the next step for Hong Kong's economy to take off can only be the economic integration of Hong Kong and Shenzhen!
The deep-sea special zone is China's window to the world, and Hong Kong is right next to the window! The closer you are to your customers, the greater the chance of doing business! The distance from China in the world is not newer than that of the New Territories North, but we are stupid enough to keep letting this piece of feng shui treasure land be abandoned!
As the old saying goes: If you don't take it, you will be damned!"
Li Xuan finally used this famous sentence from the Book of Changes as the end of his speech!