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HK chief wants population rise

(FT.com)
Updated: 2007-06-16 16:52

Hong Kong should increase its population by more than 40 per cent to 10m to match the power of New York and London as global financial centres, according to Donald Tsang, its chief executive.

"We must not allow the population to age and then shrink. We must grow in order to be competitive," Mr Tsang said in an interview with the Financial Times. "We have the fundamentals, like New York and London, to create a global financial centre and a reasonably good living for 10m people here."

Hong Kong, with just under 7m people, is already one of the most densely populated places on the planet. It depends almost entirely on imports from mainland China and abroad for food, water and fuel.

The proposed increase in population, which Mr Tsang stressed was a long-term vision, is likely to be criticised by environmentalists. Speaking before the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China by Britain, Mr Tsang said the territory needed to boost immigration and education and invest in infrastructure for the sake of its status as a financial centre.

"For the optimum level, look at the size of Manhattan, of New York and London," said Mr Tsang, who will be sworn in for a final five-year term on July 1. "It’s not only merchant bankers and the Financial Times. You need art, you need the West End, you need Wimbledon. They all need the Yankee Stadium and Broadway – that’s all in the make-up of a good city."

Mr Tsang said Hong Kong had to "move up the governance scale so that we are in the same rank as New York and London, distancing ourselves completely from the likes of Singapore or Shanghai or everybody else where they are still very much a territorial market".

Earlier this year, the government of Singapore, said it wanted to increase its population by a similar percentage from 4.5m to 6.5m over the next decade.

He was frank about the difficulties of implementing his vision – Hong Kong’s fertility rate is one of the lowest in the world – and said he would be happy to maintain a population of 7m-7.5m by the end of his term.

"Where success will lie is in an adequate stock of human re-sources of the right quality to sustain and build a financial centre...We need an injection of new blood from all nationalities, particularly from the mainland [of China] to grow our market in the mainland."