A LACK of jobs in the new towns leading to a huge surge in commuter traffic into the Central area is the biggest challenge facing the Territory Development Department in the next few years, according to retiring director Chow Che-king.
The original idea of the New Territories towns - that they would be self-contained satellites offering work, living and leisure facilities - had faltered because factories were leaving the territory for the cheaper mainland, said Mr Chow, who is due to leave the Government at the end of the month after nearly 40 years of service.
''Labourers [in China] are paid only 10 per cent of Hong Kong wages and land prices are even less,'' he said.
As factories moved out, some new town land set aside for industrial use had been re-zoned for housing - leading to an even greater density of workers with less jobs to employ them.
The growth of the service economy had resulted in more firms, such as foreign banks and insurance groups, setting up in Hong Kong. All these companies wanted their headquarters to be in Central or nearby.
''That creates a job imbalance. We have to enlarge the Central areas [through the reclamation], and that means we create more jobs in Central so we have to improve the commuter system.'' Such improvements included extending the MTR into the West Kowloon reclamation area to relieve the enormous congestion in the Nathan Road corridor, improving harbour crossings and linking the MTR to the light rail transit system in the Northeast New Territories.
