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South China Morning Post
28-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Will Hong Kong government's more hands-on approach to development pay off?
News that the government has withdrawn tenders for two sites to speed up development of the Northern Metropolis comes as Hong Kong is still celebrating the anniversaries of various economic initiatives from a previous era. There could not be a better illustration of the changes in the city's approach to economic development. On Monday, the Development Bureau announced that it was withdrawing from two sites that had previously been open to private sector bidders. A three-hectare lot in Yuen Long will instead be given to the wholly government-owned Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, which already runs an innovation park on adjacent land. The site will be used to build a microelectronics industrial ecosystem. Meanwhile, an eight-hectare site in Hung Shui Kiu will be developed as an industrial estate run by a government-owned company to be established pending a bureau policy study. In both cases, the administration is clearly taking much more of a leadership role and hands-on approach. This contrasts with the philosophy prevailing immediately after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 1997. At that time, then financial secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen set up a Business and Services Promotion Unit as part of his own office to play a much more proactive role than the laissez-faire approach that had largely applied under British administration. The unit was created to draw up and implement programmes to help businesses – basically, cutting red tape – and to support the development of Hong Kong's service sector. Each programme had its own advisory committee comprising business leaders and academics, with support from relevant government departments. Financial secretary Donald Tsang (left) is helped by his assistants as he shows copies of Hong Kong's 2000-2001 budget to the press on March 7, 2000. Photo: Dustin Shum Tsang encouraged leading members of the private sector to put forward suggestions for strengthening and improving the economy in general as well as the operating environment in specific sectors. The unit would then study how best to improve the situation with the help of external consultants if necessary.
South China Morning Post
21-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong withdraws tenders for 2 sites to speed up Northern Metropolis development
Hong Kong authorities have withdrawn tenders for two sites in the New Territories initially earmarked for multi-storey buildings for modern industries to speed up development in the Northern Metropolis , with the government taking a bigger role. The Development Bureau said on Monday that a three-hectare site in Yuen Long would be passed to the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) to build a microelectronics ecosystem to promote high-value-added new industrialisation. The corporation runs an innovation park next to the site. An eight-hectare plot in Hung Shui Kiu will be included in a bureau policy study, under which the government aims to establish a company to run an industrial estate in the area. The two sites are among 30,000 hectares of land under the Northern Metropolis megaproject, a blueprint to turn the northern New Territories near the border with mainland China into an economic powerhouse and a housing hub. The bureau said it had halted the tenders to facilitate efficient implementation of more pragmatic arrangements, which could allow them to play a bigger role in promoting industrial development. 'In order to lead and effectively promote the development of industries in the Northern Metropolis, the government has to allow flexibility in the use of [land] and adopt a 'dynamic planning' approach in formulating strategies in accordance with the actual circumstances, thereby accelerating enterprise anchoring and fostering development of the area,' a bureau spokesman said.
