Hong Kong authorities have withdrawn tenders for two sites in the New Territories initially earmarked for multi-storey buildings for modern industries to speed up development in the Northern Metropolis, with the government taking a bigger role.
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The Development Bureau said on Monday that a three-hectare site in Yuen Long would be passed to the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) to build a microelectronics ecosystem to promote high-value-added new industrialisation. The corporation runs an innovation park next to the site.
An eight-hectare plot in Hung Shui Kiu will be included in a bureau policy study, under which the government aims to establish a company to run an industrial estate in the area.
The two sites are among 30,000 hectares of land under the Northern Metropolis megaproject, a blueprint to turn the northern New Territories near the border with mainland China into an economic powerhouse and a housing hub.
The bureau said it had halted the tenders to facilitate efficient implementation of more pragmatic arrangements, which could allow them to play a bigger role in promoting industrial development.
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“In order to lead and effectively promote the development of industries in the Northern Metropolis, the government has to allow flexibility in the use of [land] and adopt a ‘dynamic planning’ approach in formulating strategies in accordance with the actual circumstances, thereby accelerating enterprise anchoring and fostering development of the area,” a bureau spokesman said.