Letters | Why Singapore comparisons don’t work for Hong Kong’s Lantau Tomorrow Vision artificial island plan
- Singapore has met its housing needs through budget-friendly and environmentally sustainable means – East Lantau presents neither
If the Lion City had included land sales revenues in its budget statements, its average annual fiscal surpluses between 2007-2017 would surpass Hong Kong’s.
A seasoned global investment banker like Mr Tam ought to know this, as well as understand that Singapore’s current national “debt” of around 1.2 times its annual GDP correlated with its decision to bolster the development of its capital markets and financial sector via the issuance of sovereign bonds in the late 1990s.
Above all, Mr Tam may also wish to note that while reclamation has contributed to about a 25 per cent increase in Singapore's land mass since 1965, near-shore reclamation – a strategy that has also been adopted by Hong Kong over the years – lies at its core.
As far as I know, the Lion City has yet to contemplate, let alone create an artificial island from scratch, as Hong Kong is planning with the East Lantau Metropolis.
The closest it has come to achieving this was via the amalgamation and expansion of seven offshore islands into Jurong Island to drive the growth of its oil refining and petrochemicals industry in the mid-1990s.
Any attempts by the authorities to establish a project on the scale of the East Lantau Metropolis would be viewed as a regression from the progress towards holistic and sustainable development.
John Chan, Singapore