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Following is the keynote speech made by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, at the Construction Industry Council Conference Luncheon today (November 29):
Chairman Lee (Shing-see), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon. It is my honour and pleasure to be invited to speak at this luncheon of the Annual Conference of the Hong Kong Construction Industry Council, the CIC.
For those of us in the trade, we know the CIC is a very important organisation for Hong Kong because it does help to promote innovative methods to groom the new generation of people in the construction industry.
As Secretary for Transport and Housing, I oversee basically five government departments, namely Housing, Highways, Transport, Civil Aviation and Marine. My Bureau also works closely with the MTR Corporation, which is the operator of the railway system in Hong Kong, and the Airport Authority, which runs the Hong Kong International Airport. You can see that I do have a rather big portfolio. This Transport and Housing family probably is one of the major clients and partners of the construction industry in Hong Kong.
A Very Positive Outlook
There is no better time than now for the construction sector in Hong Kong to invest in productivity and technology. In the past five years, the Government's capital works expenditure has increased from $20.5 billion in 2007/08 to an estimated $70 billion in this financial year, 2013/14. We keep planning and putting in place infrastructure projects for supporting economic growth in Hong Kong, with increasing emphasis on quality of life and sustainability.
Some of the ongoing projects in hand, under my portfolio, include the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and its related projects such as the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities and the Hong Kong Link Road. We are also undertaking two major transport infrastructure projects in the city area: the Central-Wan Chai Bypass, targeted for commissioning in 2017, and the Central Kowloon Route, expected to commence construction around 2015 for completion in about five years. Upon completion, these two roads will help relieve congested roads and reduce journey time very significantly. For example, with the opening of the Central Kowloon Route, if you go from the eastern part of Kowloon to the central part, at the moment you need to spend 35 minutes. Next time it will be five minutes. It will largely transform the road scale, if you like.
Five new railway lines are also being constructed. Last month I attended the completion ceremony of the structural works of the West Island Line stations. The whole West Island Line is going to be commissioned next year. And we have the South Island Line (East), the Kwun Tong Line Extension and the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, the high-speed railway. These few projects will all be completed during the next few years. The Shatin to Central Link, which is the fifth one, will be commissioned in two phases, in 2018 and 2020. We have a lot to do, from now until 2020.
But we are not stopping there. We have just completed a public engagement exercise on the Review of the Railway Development Strategy. The recommendations of the consultant, taking into account public feedback, are due at the end of this year. After studying their recommendations, the Government will formulate the blueprint for railway development beyond 2020.
The aviation side is equally exciting. The Government has already given in-principle approval in early 2012 for the Airport Authority's proposal to adopt a three-runway system for the expansion of the Hong Kong International Airport. The Airport Authority is now taking forward the necessary planning work vigorously, including the statutory environmental impact assessment, the EIA. If the EIA is approved sometime next year, we hope that construction works will commence as soon as possible, so that the three-runway system can be commissioned in 2023 to cope with the rapid growth in air traffic demand. The kind of expansion we are talking about, in terms of having the three-runway system, is that our capacity in handling cargoes, in handling passengers, will be double what we are doing now. You can see the scale of the expansion we will be having.
Meanwhile, to cope with both short- and medium-term air traffic demand, the Airport Authority is implementing its midfield expansion project by two phases, together with a passenger concourse.
These spotlight projects aside, there is a significant portion of "people-based" public works. Slightly more than a year ago, the Government announced a new policy on "universal accessibility" to improve the accessibility of the public walkways for the public, especially our elderly citizens and people with disability, by way of installing lifts to bring them further convenience to the public walkways. The current list of projects is based on priorities set by the 18 District Councils. The Highways Department is taking all these projects forward.
At the same time, our hillside escalator link projects are another example of public works to help the less strong to negotiate some of Hong Kong's famously hilly terrain. We are also trying to do small projects - although these projects are becoming increasingly more expensive, even though they are small compared to the railways or the third runway of the airport.
Above all, there is no infrastructure project closer to the hearts and lives of the people than housing. As many of the local guests here know, we are now conducting a three-month public consultation on our Long Term Housing Strategy, with a vision to providing adequate and affordable housing to the people of Hong Kong. The consultation will actually expire next Monday. After that we'll be sorting out the various comments, feedback from the community. The Steering Committee on the Long Term Housing Strategy will then submit a consultation report to the Government within the first quarter of next year. Under the existing proposal for the Long Term Housing Strategy, we reckon that some 470 000 new housing units, close to half a million, will need to be supplied in the coming 10 years. This calls for the extension of existing new towns, such as Tung Chung, and the planning of New Development Areas, such as Northeast New Territories and Hung Shui Kiu.
To help meet housing needs and improve the living space of our community, we will be talking about building a new town of the scale of Sha Tin every 10 years in the coming few decades.
I have spoken in length to give you a feel of the many opportunities lying ahead for the construction industry. Consider the number of jobs that have been or are to be created, and the breadth of skills within the construction sector they will call for. The outlook is truly positive for the industry. The coming decades continue to be construction decades for Hong Kong.
Four Challenges
The great opportunities, however, also will bring great challenges. In a city as dense as Hong Kong, I can see at least four concerns that the local construction sector must address.
Safety On-site and Concerns of Local Communities
The first one is safety. It concerns both safety on-site, and perception of safety by the affected local communities. Let me give you an example. The current construction of the Shatin to Central Link covers several districts, including some of the most densely developed urban areas in Hong Kong. In the process, we have received a lot of local residents' concern. For example, some local residents in Kowloon City have expressed concern about the structural safety of their buildings being affected by the underground railway construction works. The MTR Corporation had to suspend work for a while to investigate into the matter, and the whole issue requires the MTR Corporation to actually report the findings to the District Council. Anything, large and small nowadays are large issues.
Time
The second challenge is time. This challenge is particularly pronounced on the public housing front, where the community's demand far exceeds the pace we can build at this moment. One of the innovative methods being used by the Hong Kong Housing Authority to speed up production is prefabrication. In particular, the use of more steel mesh reinforcement reduces steel bar fixing works and the use of prefabricated toilets transfers wet trade from site to factory.
Needless to say, the pursuit of speedier construction should not be at the expense of safety and quality. This is exactly where innovation helps us most - helping us to reduce delivery time without sacrificing safety and quality. And of course for people of the trade, you have another requirement, and it is to be within budget.
Environment
The third challenge is improving environmental requirements in our laws, as well as an increasing awareness amongst the general public of the environmental impacts and the long-term sustainability of construction projects.
An example of technology being used to mitigate the environmental impact of construction processes is the use of the non-dredge reclamation method for the Artificial Island of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge project Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities. The first of its kind in Hong Kong in respect of reclamation, an innovative, fully non-dredge reclamation method has been developed in building the 150-hectare artificial land. This avoids the need of disposal of a large volume of dredged marine sediments. It also reduces substantially the amount of backfilling material and natural sand as well as the release of suspended solids into the marine environment during construction.
Innovation is required both in terms of construction methods and concepts to meet the environmental challenge. Let me take the large noise enclosure in Tuen Mun Town Centre as an example. It is about 1.5 kilometres long in total and 20 to 50 metres in width. Erecting such a large enclosure over an existing busy high-speed road surrounded by high-rise developments is unprecedented in Hong Kong. Apart from building a slender and responsive appearance, it incorporates the largest vertical greening, approximately 4 150 square metres, and roof gardening, approximately 14 500 square metres. When completed, it will be a vibrant tapestry of greenery and create a new icon to the Tuen Mun Town Centre.
Innovation should also go hand in hand with design. A few months ago, my Bureau joined a group of urban designers at a seminar to explore how transport infrastructure could be better designed to enhance the cityscape, create a pleasant ambience and enhance enjoyment by the public instead of standing there as harsh, cold eyesores.
Manpower
The fourth, and the largest or biggest, challenge to our construction industry is manpower. Or should I say human power, as I understand now many more females are joining the trade?
We are currently facing an undersupply of construction workers. While the number of registered construction workers has increased by around 40 per cent from about 225 000 as at the end of 2007 to about 314 000 in April this year, the average age is now about 46, and 40 per cent of them are aged 50 and above. Of course I am not trying to be age discriminating. Fifty perhaps in the contemporary world is still a rather young age. But in terms of construction I don't know - the physical strength, maybe we need younger hands.
Obviously, the industry needs new and young blood. Thanks to the exemplary efforts of the Construction Industry Council, more than 8 000 trainees had participated in the various training courses for skilled workers organised by the CIC from 2009 to May this year. About 3 000 of these trainees joined the Enhanced Construction Manpower Training Scheme. Among them, 55 per cent are young people aged below 35. This is really encouraging.
We still need to do a lot more to encourage and inspire more new blood to join the construction industry as a promising and innovative industry. Being in the construction industry, in my view, is not just working on bricks and mortar. The new - I emphasise the word "new" - construction industry will infuse advanced technology, precision and operation-flow planning in bringing about an impressive change of our cityscape, and an improvement in our quality of life. So it is about life as far as the construction industry is concerned.
Our challenge is also to adopt smarter building methods, to free some of the processes from manpower dependence, and to enable more efficient workflows.
Concluding remarks
Ladies and gentlemen, the cityscape of Hong Kong is changing non-stop. Day by day, we strive for more connectivity, better living environment and better mobility.
After all, all infrastructure works boil down to the word "people" - built for the people, used by the people, and connecting people.
With this remark, may I wish today's Conference a great success. Thank you very much.
Ends/Friday, November 29, 2013
Issued at HKT 20:25
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