Only reclamation can give Hong Kong the space it needs for a bright future
- Allan Zeman says the future of Hong Kong lies in reclamation and greater connectivity to the mainland via the Greater Bay Area
- Young mainlanders with expertise in tech should be allowed to move to Hong Kong, just as young Hongkongers are free to go north to pursue opportunities
When young people graduate from university, their starting salary is low. It might take them 10 years, maybe more, to afford a property. This doesn’t give hope, but saps confidence and stifles progress. There is something very wrong with a system where neither the young nor the old can see a future for themselves.
Unfortunately, there was a lapse of reclamation for some time in Hong Kong and, under previous administrations, we stopped building subsidised flats for years when we should have built more. That caused the housing problem we have now. Worse, property prices go up when interest rates are low. So, the haves have more, and the have-nots have less.
Meanwhile, some of the improvised solutions to our worsening housing problem – subdivided flats – are immoral. A city like Hong Kong should not have subdivided flats. Given our gross domestic product and the money in our banks and the government’s reserves, we’re not a poor city. Use that money!
Although some have argued that allowing up to 150 mainlanders a day to move to Hong Kong adds to the housing problem, I think they are missing the big picture. Hong Kong needs to attract the right people, especially young people with expertise in technology.
The housing crisis has cost us stability. Hong Kong is stuck because we have come to a point where too much criticism is hindering progress.
When I was chairman of Ocean Park, I never really opened a public consultation, but I really did what I felt was the right thing for the theme park. When I first got there, it was losing money. I could have taken the usual route of running a government-owned park and just patched it up a little.
But I had a vision of it becoming the best theme park in the world. For more than a decade, I treated it like my own business and rebuilt it into a world-class attraction; it won the Liseberg Applause Award – the amusement park industry’s version of an Oscar.
We are not going to satisfy everyone, but we need to consider the majority and what is good for Hong Kong. The most important thing is to have confidence in Hong Kong and ourselves, work with the government and China, and get all the partners together. I support the chief executive’s policy address because it offers solutions to some of the problems we are facing. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, everyone in Hong Kong needs to do our part and be positive.
Dr Allan Zeman is chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Group and former chairman of Ocean Park