Eastern Corridor linking the eastern part of Hong Kong Island with remainder of the urban area greatly improved Hong Kong's ro communication network. The Hong Kong Government decided that a new Eastern Harbour Crossing should provide road and rail tunnel facilities; at the end of the period under review, the Government was negotiating with several consortia concerning the construction, operation and financing of the tunnel.
49. A review of development in Hong Kong would not be complete without mention of the new towns. In addition to continuing consolidation of the now well-established new towns of Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun and Yuen Long which are forecast to house 540,000, 680,000, 420,000 and 102,000 people respectively by 1994, construction made good progress at Tai Po and Fanling where populations of 242,000 and 147,000 are expected in the same year. Major engineering works and public housing construction to house 140,000 people by 1994 are under way in Junk Bay and the first residents of the new town will move in by early 1987. Advance engineering work started at Tin Shui Wai in the north- western New Territories where the population is expected to reach 66,000 people also by 1994. By 1995 the population in that area, which also includes Tuen Mun and Yuen Long, could rise to over 700,000; and to cater for the expected travel demand in this region, work on a Light Rail Transit system linking Tuen Mun with Yuen Long will commence early next year.
VII. VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
50. Vietnamese refugees continued to arrive in Hong Kong, although the "closed centre" policy, which the continuing flow of arrivals together with the fall in the rate of overseas resettlement had compelled the Hong Kong Government reluctantly to agree to adopt, was effective in reducing the size of the influx. The rate of resettlement remained disappointingly low. In September 1985 Her Majesty's Government jointly with the Hong Kong Government announced several measures aimed at reducing the size of Hong Kong's refugee population: Her Majesty's Government would relax its family reunion criteria to permit some 500 refugees now in Hong Kong camps to settle in the United Kingdom; Her Majesty's Government would also consider accepting further limited numbers from Hong Kong depending upon the response of other countries and the circumstances at the time; and the Hong Kong Government would be prepared to consider accepting a limited number of ethnic Chinese from the camps, but only as part of an international effort to reduce drastically the size of Hong Kong's refugee population. Her Majesty's Government would mount a major diplomatic effort to use these decisions to persuade other countries to offer more resettlement places to Hong Kong. Meanwhile Her Majesty's Government also announced that present circumstances do not make it possible to abandon the "closed centre" policy.
VIII. SECURITY
51. Her Majesty's Government has announced that it will be withdrawing the Second Battalion 7th Gurkha Rifles from Hong Kong in 1987, and that the battalion will be disbanded leaving a garrison of one British and three Gurkha battalions. This is a reduction to 1980 levels. The Second Battalion 7th Gurkha Rifles was raised at that time as a stop-gap measure to deal with increased illegal
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