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Hong Kong reclamation plan could earn city HK$1.6 trillion, claims consultant to group that wanted project to be even bigger
- Former lawmaker Kaizer Lau, who works for Our Hong Kong Foundation, believes project will break even within 20 years
- Surveyor points to potential growth in GDP from Greater Bay Area as reason to build more, and says planned development is too small
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Hong Kong will break even on a controversial 1,700-hectare reclamation project off Lantau Island within 20 years and could make trillions of dollars from the deal, a member of a government-friendly think tank has claimed.
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Kaizer Lau Ping-cheung, a former surveyor and lawmaker, and now a consultant with former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa’s Our Hong Kong Foundation, said land reclamation was necessary and, if anything, the 1,700 hectares proposed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her policy address was too little.
“Since we’re going to be spending that much money anyway, the more we build, the greater the cost-effectiveness,” Lau said on Monday.
Those opposing Lam’s “Lantau Tomorrow Vision” believe the scheme will come at high environmental and economic costs – conservative estimates put the price tag at about HK$500 billion (US$63.8 billion), roughly half of the city’s fiscal reserves, while others put it closer to HK$1 trillion.
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