“Over the years, because of limitations in land supply, it’s actually become a bottleneck for us to be competitive. We need to compete, we need to improve the housing condition, we need to have sufficient land for commercial purposes.

“I hope our vision can be far-reaching and we should look at the bigger picture, rather than getting narrower and smaller.”

Hong Kong Northern Metropolis: what bold ideas will advisory panel come up with?

On Monday Ip, the Exco convenor, had urged the government to prioritise the Northern Metropolis project near the border with mainland China – a plan to develop land there into an international IT hub, yielding 900,000 flats for 2.5 million people.

She suggested that while the government should continue its study on the HK$580 billion (US$78.3 billion) Lantau reclamation project, she cast doubt over the economics of it and questioned whether the city really had such a great demand for commercial land.

In response, Lee on Tuesday said both mega projects – introduced by predecessor Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and mentioned in his policy address – should proceed properly, especially with the city having to boost competitiveness and outperform other rivals.

He said one of the factors to succeed was to explore if Hong Kong had enough land to develop its economy, and whether office rent was sufficiently competitive.

“The provision of land from these projects is not only for the coming five to 10 years, but for the next 30 or 50 years. This is important for our future benefit and competitiveness,” he added.

Lee said the extra land from the two mega projects would allow residents to live in bigger homes, noting that Hongkongers on average only had about 172 sq ft of living space – a third lower than in Singapore and Shanghai, and 40 per cent less than neighbouring Shenzhen.

He further defended the reclamation project, aimed at producing 210,000 flats to house half a million people and functioning as a third business district.

‘New islands allow Hong Kong to build 4th tunnel without passing urban areas’

Lee said the scope of reclamation was “not too much” compared with other global cities, as only 7 per cent of Hong Kong’s land came from this process, while in Singapore it was 20 per cent.

Ip told the Post on Tuesday she had no further comments on Lee’s remarks.

Planning sector legislator Tony Tse Wai-chuen said the two mega projects should not be mutually exclusive, especially when they were at different stages of development.

“Maybe there will be worries about whether there are enough resources, including manpower, to cope with several large projects at the same time, such as construction of railways and major arterial roads,” said Tse, chairman of the Legislative Council’s development panel.

“I think this highlights that there should be proper planning, rather than giving up one of them,” he added, noting the Northern Metropolis plan could provide housing and land earlier than the reclamation project.

Lawmaker Lau Kwok-fan said the projects should not be evaluated simply based on financial feasibility.

“If the government launches most of the projects on the artificial islands through public-private partnerships, those private companies will calculate on their own whether the investments are worthwhile,” Lau said.

“There are lots of ways of doing development projects and they should not be hindered by monetary terms.”

But Lau also urged the government to explain the financing plan to the public as soon as possible.

Separately, Lee said he would be heading to China’s Hainan province for the Boao Forum for Asia conference from Wednesday until Friday to meet foreign leaders and further discuss cooperation for development amid uncertain global politics.

He will also attend the opening plenary of the annual conference as well as the joint welcome dinner hosted by the Boao Forum for Asia and the Hainan provincial government.

He said he was looking forward to the trip and would seize the opportunity to “tell good Hong Kong stories”.