The 90-year-old founder and chairman of Hopewell Holdings also described it as โtoo early to sayโ whether his property empire would follow its peers and commit to investing in the mega development near the cityโs border with mainland China.
โWe donโt know, because at the present moment the land is still not owned by the government. So thatโs the first priority [for us],โ he told the South China Morning Post. โGet the ownership, get the transport โ all that is the governmentโs [job]. After that, the private sector will come in.โ
Wu said Hong Kongโs development had been constrained by a lack of land, which had led to the housing affordability crisis. He noted that out of Hong Kongโs roughly 1,000 sq km of land, housing a population of 7.5 million, only about 25 per cent had been developed for residential and urban use.
While Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiuโs administration has focused heavily on the 30,000-hectare Northern Metropolis project as the key driver of Hong Kongโs growth, Wu argued that large-scale reclamation in waters off Lantau โ which he advocated for decades โ should be revived.
โThe priority is the Northern Metropolis, but you still have to be prepared โฆ Hong Kongโs [population] may grow to about 10 million people. How can you handle it? Youโve got to think ahead, find the land on top of the Northern Metropolis,โ Wu said.