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Following is the speech by the Chief Executive, Mr C Y Leung, at the 3rd Annual ULI Asia Pacific Summit this morning (May 21):
Lynn (Chairman, ULI, Ms Lynn Thurber), Patrick (Global Chief Executive Officer, ULI, Mr Patrick Phillips), John (Chief Executive, ULI Asia Pacific, Mr John Fitzgerald), ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning.
When we met in Shanghai almost a year ago, I spoke about wearing two hats, a Hong Kong Government hat and a professional hard hat. Today, I am very proud to wear another "hospitality" hat for Hong Kong as host city for the 3rd ULI Asia Pacific Summit.
With this "hospitality" hat pulled on tight, I am delighted to welcome so many friends from the Asia Pacific and from around the world to our home, Hong Kong.
In terms of the overall theme of this year's Summit, which is looking to the future, I am pleased to see that "Building Healthy Places", which is an ingenious and thought-provoking topic on many levels, features high on the agenda. On the human level it stands for healthy body, healthy mind. On the sustainability level it stands for a healthy environment and on the economic level it underlines the importance of healthy business infrastructure. The challenge for governments, including the Hong Kong Government, is to connect the dots and achieve a dynamic, clean and efficient urban environment.
You don't have to look far to see these three elements in action amid our city's rapid development. Just a short walk from this venue, you can see reclamation work for our new Central-Wan Chai Bypass, which will very significantly ease traffic flow between the east and west ends of the city. I should also mention that this will be the last reclamation works within Victoria Harbour. This leads to my next point. In previous decades, development of Victoria Harbour has been mostly business-driven. After all, some of the world's most expensive real estate has been results of reclamation from our harbour. Today, we have a more people-oriented vision to preserve Victoria Harbour as a green, vibrant and accessible place for local residents and visitors to relax, take in the views and enjoy cultural events - healthy body, healthy mind! Herein lies a lesson for all fast-growing cities. That lesson is the need for compromise in order to strike the right balance between building a city that is healthy for people, business and the environment.
Allow me to narrow down the conversation to the subject of Hong Kong's transport infrastructure. I have chosen this topic for my talk because it highlights very well our strategies to balance the needs of people, business and the environment. Transport infrastructure development also underscores our aim to expand the city's economic capacity and grasp the emerging opportunities across the boundary, in the Mainland of China.
In a compact city such as ours, it is essential that people can get around quickly, easily and safely. An efficient and affordable public transport system is key. Every day, our public transport network handles about 12 million passenger journeys. That represents about 90 per cent of all passenger trips in Hong Kong. Rail travel accounts for about 42 per cent of total public transport usage. Railways are quick, convenient and relatively clean. They are good for people, good for business and good for the environment. Our metro system, the MTR, carries an average of 5.2 million passengers every weekday. The MTR Corporation is a listed company with the Hong Kong Government as its largest shareholder.
Under our Railway Development Strategy 2000, it is Government's policy to promote railways as the backbone of our passenger transport system. Since the turn of the century, we have introduced eight additional railway lines and extensions. These projects improve the connectivity between new towns and the urban areas and help meet the economic, social and recreational needs of our community.
With our sights set very much on the future, five railway projects are currently under construction. They include four domestic lines, and a cross-boundary Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL). The 26-kilometre Hong Kong section of the XRL is being built underground. It will link our city to the 16,000-kilometre national high-speed rail network which connects people in cities across the Mainland of China. When these five projects are completed by 2020, the total length of our railway network will be increased from the current 218 kilometres to over 270 kilometres and be easily accessible to more than 70 per cent of the population.
A well-planned railway system not only caters to our residents' daily travel needs, but also unleashes the potential for strategic developments along the alignments. Over the past few decades, new towns have sprung up along major railway lines. Our integrated "Rail-plus-Property" model facilitates the social, economic and spatial development of Hong Kong. Directly above some of our MTR stations, cities within the city have evolved with a full complement of facilities including flats and offices as well as shops, health-care, leisure and entertainment facilities and, of course, transport services.
Promoting railway development has the additional advantage of easing congestion on the roads, thereby reducing the roadside carbon emissions. We plan to announce the new railway development blueprint beyond 2020 in the not-too-distant future.
At the same time, we are embarking on a public transport strategy study to map out long-term strategic directions and measures to synergise various public transport modes and their interface. Our goal is to maintain Hong Kong's public transport system as one of the most efficient and user-friendly in the world. Last month, Hong Kong was rated number one in the world in the Urban Mobility Index. The Index is compiled by management consultancy firm Arthur D Little. It measures the ease of getting around a city and the city's preparedness for mobility challenges of the future. Hong Kong seems to be on the right track. Pun intended!
With a great deal of experience in urban transport systems, Hong Kong has also become a keen exporter of engineering and transport management services. Just last week, Nick (Mr Nicholas Brooke) and I visited Sweden's capital city, Stockholm, which, as it happens, is number two in the Urban Mobility Index. It is a wonderful city which is very proud of its efficiency and its clean environment. During my stay, I took a ride on the Stockholm Metro, which has been operated by Hong Kong's MTR Corporation (MTRC) since 2009. In recent years, the service has set new records for punctuality and was recognised by the Swedish Institute for Quality for "Successful Business Development in 2013". On the strength of its achievements, the MTRC is planning to launch a new express train service between Sweden's two largest cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg. Elsewhere, Hong Kong's MTRC also operates the London Overground system in the UK and the Melbourne Train System in Australia. In Mainland China, the MTRC helped to build and now operates metro lines in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou. The company also offers a full range of railway management, planning and design services around the world.
I mention all this because it underscores an important point. Hong Kong not only uses its transport development experience to benefit our city; we also export our experience and know-how around the world. Today, transport and engineering services are an important component of Hong Kong's services-oriented economy, where services contribute more than 90 per cent of our GDP. And because of Hong Kong's close physical, cultural and commercial links with the Mainland of China, our city serves as a Chief Knowledge Officer for China, not just for transport and engineering services, but for a full range of professional and financial services. International firms come to Hong Kong for the best information about tapping into China markets. At the same time, Mainland Chinese enterprises use Hong Kong's international experience as a stepping stone to the rest of the world.
Cross-boundary transport infrastructure is at the heart of people-to-people and business-to-business connectivity between Hong Kong and the Mainland of China. An important part of this equation is the Express Rail Link, or XRL, which I mentioned a few minutes ago. Another major project under construction is the massive Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
When completed in 2016, the Main Bridge section will be the longest bridge-cum-tunnel sea crossing in the world, totalling 29.6 kilometres in length with 6.7 kilometres of underwater tunnel. The project is a masterpiece of engineering which will stretch into the western Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. Some explanation is needed here. Shenzhen, the first Special Economic Zone of China which is now a city of more than 10 million people, and others such as Dongguan are on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary. These cities are contiguous with Hong Kong, more readily accessible, and have formed part of a large conurbation with Hong Kong. On the other side of the estuary are cities such as Zhuhai and Nansha, which are less readily accessible and hence less developed.
The bridge will provide direct road access to the west bank and open up a whole new hinterland for Hong Kong. It will generate significant economic and social benefits for our city and the entire region. For example, road travel from Zhuhai to our airport and container ports will be reduced by about 80 per cent to around one hour. The bridge will bring other large cities within a three-hour travel radius of Hong Kong. Cities as far away as those in Indochina will be reachable within a day's drive from Hong Kong, thus opening up a whole new corridor for trade between Hong Kong and member states of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) bloc.
Hong Kong's position as a trade and logistics hub will also be enhanced as goods from the western PRD and western Guangdong, Guangxi and even Indochina will have better access to Hong Kong International Airport and our container ports. The western PRD has a population of about 9.3 million people and GDP of around RMB1,500 billion. The new bridge will create enormous opportunities for business in both directions.
Transport infrastructure development is having significant implications for our overall urban planning. Completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge as well as the 9-kilometre Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link within the coming few years will bring fundamental change to the area.
The Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities for the bridge will be located on an artificial island of some 130 hectares in size. With its proximity to our international airport, there is great potential value for the artificial island and nearby areas, including Hong Kong's largest island, Lantau, as a "bridgehead economy". In my Policy Address in January, I spoke about my vision for developing an East Lantau Metropolis as a new core business district and attractive population centre for Hong Kong. This will capitalise on the opportunities arising from the major infrastructure projects as they become operational in and around the East Lantau area. I have established a Lantau Development Advisory Committee to help the Government prepare an enhanced development strategy for Lantau Island, a strategy that balances the need for a healthy economy, healthy people and a healthy environment.
As our cross-boundary endeavours push further west, we must not forget about the east. Through the joint efforts of the Hong Kong and Shenzhen governments, a new boundary control point is under construction. This Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai Boundary Control Point is scheduled to open in 2018. This will strengthen Hong Kong's connectivity with the eastern part of Guangdong Province and help to expand our economic hinterland. This is one of seven major co-operation projects under our national economic blueprint, the 12th Five-Year Plan. It is also featured in the Framework Agreement on Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation which was signed in 2010. I mention this because it underscores the spirit of collaboration at the government-to-government level between Hong Kong and Mainland China for the mutual benefit of our people and our economy. Indeed, neighbouring cities and provinces have embarked on equally ambitious infrastructural projects that will further enhance their spatial relationships with Hong Kong.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a popular Chinese phrase which says, quote: "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". This aptly describes the far-reaching urban development programme under way in Hong Kong. The Government estimates that annual capital works expenditure will exceed $70 billion this financial year and for the next few years. The cash will become fixed assets, the effects and benefits of which many generations after us will enjoy.
Connectivity is all-important. Indeed, a journey of a thousand miles within Hong Kong could start with a single step on a nearby elevated walkway that leads to trains, buses, trams and ferries and on to business districts, residential areas or lush country parks across Hong Kong. A journey of a thousand miles in our Mainland neighbourhood could start with a single step onto a cross-boundary train, bus or coach, making Hong Kong truly a super-connector between China and the rest of the world.
I hope that our visitors will be able to find some time in their busy schedules to explore our city, perhaps take a stroll along our harbourfront, and enjoy the many delights that Hong Kong has to offer.
It is a great honour for Hong Kong to host this event and I wish you all a very successful and fruitful ULI Asia Pacific Summit.
Thank you very much.
Ends/Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Issued at HKT 13:40
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