Beijing’s top man for Hong Kong ‘says central authorities confident in West Kowloon arts hub’s ability to drive growth’
- District board chairman Henry Tang reveals Xia Baolong, head of Beijing’s top office overseeing local affairs, made the assurance during duty visit to the capital by executives
- Xia believes Hong Kong has ‘excellent growth potential’ as an international metropolis, according to the arts hub
Central authorities have “full confidence” in the ability of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District to drive growth in creative industries, the head of Beijing’s top office overseeing local affairs has said, according to the chairman of the arts hub’s board.
Henry Tang Ying-yen on Thursday revealed that Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council, made the assurance during a duty visit to the capital by executives of the district two days earlier.
“Given that arts and culture, and creative industries are one of the important pillars of Hong Kong’s future economic development, Director Xia hopes that [the] West Kowloon Cultural District will drive the growth of the relevant industries in Hong Kong,” Tang said.
“The central government has full confidence in this and is pleased to see it come to fruition.”
The arts hub said Xia believed that Hong Kong had “excellent growth potential” as an international metropolis, adding that developing cultural and creative industries aligned with the city’s situation and development trends.
Tang thanked the top official for supporting the arts hub and said Hong Kong’s status as a “world city” was important for the district to serve as a platform for fostering cultural exchanges between the East and the West, a role Hong Kong has been tasked with under the national 14th five-year plan.
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The Hong Kong delegation included Tang, also a Standing Committee member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and Betty Fung Ching Suk-yee, CEO of the cultural district.
They also visited the capital’s Palace Museum and met its director, Wang Xudong, to exchange views on the latest situation and development of the cultural district and the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
Development of the district has been held up by project changes, management reshuffles and three years of social-distancing measures during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tang in August said the arts hub could be forced to stop staging events at its two museums and theatre as a HK$21.6 billion (US$2.8 billion) government seed fund was expected to run out in March 2025.
While the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority has yet to make public details of its financing plans submitted to the government, two sources close to the body hinted that selling flats was being considered, with veteran developers and academics expressing concerns over the idea.
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The board chairman attributed the art hub’s financial situation to the construction of the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus, saying it had halted all of the district’s revenue-generating developments for seven years.
Both Fung and Tang said the district’s M+ and Palace Museum had done very well in terms of their cost recovery rate, or how much an institution contributes to its operating costs.
The rate for M+ stood at 46 per cent, while that for Palace Museum was 44 per cent, both among two of the world’s highest, Fung said.
In comparison, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Singapore’s National Museum had rates of 36 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
