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Hong Kong economy
OpinionHong Kong Opinion
Mike Rowse
Opinion
Mike Rowse

Will Hong Kong government’s more hands-on approach to development pay off?

As a number of economic initiatives mark significant anniversaries, it is worth looking back on the development strategy of a previous era

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The San Tin Technopole, which is part of the Hong Kong government’s Northern Metropolis project, on February 27. Photo: May Tse
Mike Rowse
Mike Rowse is an independent commentator.
News that the government has withdrawn tenders for two sites to speed up development of the Northern Metropolis comes as Hong Kong is still celebrating the anniversaries of various economic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.
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