Motion of Thanks - Housing, Infrastructure, Planning  and Development (2013/1/30)

President, in the Policy Address, a number of new development projects are proposed and they can all help promote the development of the local tourism industry, so they merit our support. The Chief Executive has the insightful observation that such places as the western coast of the Pearl River Delta (PRD), Qianhai, Nansha, Hengqin, and so on, are developing rapidly. Coupled with the opportunities presented by the launch of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) project and other infrastructure projects, he was prompted to propose that Northwest Hong Kong be made the focus of future development. In this area, Lantau Island possesses geographical advantages within the PRD area, such that after the commissioning of the HZMB, it will even enjoy the advantages of being a "bridgehead economy" conducive to the full-scale development of such industries as logistics, tourism, and so on.

At present, there are many tourism and convention and exhibition resources on Lantau Island, including the Hong Kong Disneyland Park, Ngong Ping 360, the fishing village at Tai O, hotels, the AsiaWorld-Expo, and so on. In respect of complementary transport facilities, there are the airport, the Airport Railway, the SkyPier, cross-boundary buses, relatively speaking well-developed local transport networks, and so on, so basically, the conditions to forge it into a tourism island are present. It is believed that the potential of this area in the development of tourism is huge, pending the green light from the Government to carry out relevant planning.

Mainland visitors are an important client source of tourism in Hong Kong. According to the statistics of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, last year, the number of visitors to Hong Kong was more than 48 million person trips and Mainland visitors accounted for 72% of the total. The figures of the National ourism Administration also show that the annual rate of increase in the number of visitors to Hong Kong was on average as high as 16.2%, whereas the annual rate of increase in the number of people visiting the Mainland was on average about 3.8%, so the two-way flow of people between the two places in 2011 was as many as 108 million person trips, thus making them a two-way travel area with the highest figures in the world.

In the past, the coming on stream of the Guangshen Expressway provided impetus to the economy of Guangdong and Hong Kong, and even some areas of the PRD. With the development of the national high-speed rail (HSR) network and the completion of the HZMB in the future, the land transport network between Hong Kong and the PRD, and even the whole country, will be opened up. Take the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link as an example, it is expected that after its commissioning, it will only take 15 minutes to travel between Hong Kong and Futian in Shenzhen, and it will be possible to reach the majority of cities in the southern part of central China within five hours. It will only take 10 hours to travel to Beijing direct, so the two places will be much closer to each other.

According to government estimates, in the first 50 years of the operation of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong HSR, if we simply calculate the journey time that visitors will be able to save, the benefits that can be gained will be equivalent to $87 billion. The national HSR network, in extending south to Hong Kong, will also help enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness, apart from meeting the needs of the high volume of visitors travelling between the two places. As a result, it will also serve to directly promote exchanges in the economy, trade, tourism and culture of the two places. Among these areas, tourism and the professional services will be the first sectors to benefit from this, and then the retail and catering industries will also be able to get a share of the new business opportunities.

The Beijing-Guangzhou HSR, as the main connection for the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link to link up with the whole country, was commissioned at the end of last year and the HSR grid with four North-South and four East-West HSR corridors as planned by the Mainland has also taken shape. The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link will go into service in 2015 at the earliest. Furthermore, since the controversies over the implementation of the co-location arrangement are still ongoing, this is a cause for concern. In the Policy Address, no mention is made of the cross-boundary infrastructure, so I hope the Government can expedite the construction of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link and the HZMB, so that these projects that have been discussed for over a decade can be completed as planned. 

The third runway of the airport is also another major infrastructure requiring close attention. It is beyond dispute that the existing capacity of the airport will not be sufficient, but according to the proposal of the Hong Kong Airport Authority, the third runway will not be commissioned before 2023, so it will take an even longer time than that required for the construction of the whole Chep Lap Kok Airport back then. What is even more ironical is that this new runway taking more than a decade to build will reach full capacity again seven years after commissioning, yet we have not seen the authorities put forward any countermeasures. This matter again underscores the fact that the Government has all along lacked foresight in planning such complementary facilities for tourism as transport facilities, so it is hoped that the incumbent Government can look at this problem with new thinking.

The Kai Tak Cruise Terminal will be completed in the middle of this year and as far as I know, 40 pick-up and drop-off spaces and 30 queuing spaces for use by coaches carrying passengers to and from the Terminal will be put in place. According to the assessment of the project consultant, the parking spaces for coaches would be able to handle about 1 800 passengers simultaneously, so they should be adequate to meet the operational need of the largest cruise liners. However, there is still quite a lot of room for improvement in the matching transport facilities for handling tourists travelling between Hong Kong and the Mainland and the diversion of traffic from the peripheral urban areas.  

The problem of insufficient parking spaces for coaches is serious and has been long-standing. According to government figures, in the past three years, the total number of non-franchised buses in Hong Kong, including coaches, stood at about 6 700. Yet, the number of parking spaces designated for non-franchised buses was about 5 300 in the same period, so it is evident that demand has outstripped supply. Among them, the total number of parking spaces designated for coaches in urban areas is only about 2 900 and this is precisely the reason for the deteriorating situation of frequent traffic congestions and the competition between pedestrians and vehicles for space on the roads at tourist attractions and in the shopping areas downtown.

The Policy Address proposes the establishment of the Working Group on Convention and Exhibition Industries and Tourism to discuss and formulate policies for the tourism industry. Here, I hope that the authorities, in the course of examining the policies, will carry out relatively comprehensive planning and formulate specific measures for such issues as transport and infrastructure mentioned above, and change their present approach of taking piecemeal measures to deal with issues.

President, I so submit.