To many people in Tin Shui Wai, the 'City of Sadness', jobs can be few and far between. The town of more than 270,000 residents has a 9 per cent unemployment rate, the highest in Hong Kong. Locals face long commutes to jobs elsewhere - if they can find them at all.
Now it turns out their troubles owe much to a secret deal that was intended to keep them down.
A private memorandum between the pre-handover government and developer Mightycity Company - owned by Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong (Holdings) and China Resources - has come to light. It reveals a plan not to develop the town commercially to avoid creating competition to Kingswood Villas, the district's sole private estate.
This has meant that while public housing estates occupy much of the town, they have only small local businesses, shops and markets. The secret deal, which was not made fully public, shows that the government bought almost 500 hectares of former fish ponds and farms from developers in 1982 at an above-market price. It then agreed to develop the land in a joint venture.
'The government's decision to purchase back land at a premium from developers and the contents of the private memorandum is unimaginable by today's standards,' said Dr Law Chi-kwong, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong and one of a few people outside the government who have seen the document.
The saga begins 1977, when the Special Committee on Land Production commissioned a study on developing Tin Shui Wai. Sensing a chance to make profit, Mightycity began buying up land in 1979. It bought 488 hectares.
