Junk Bay will accommodate 75,000 people in public housing and 48,000 people in private housing. The first public housing intake is expected in early 1987. Work on the first tube of the road tunnel linking East Kowloon to Junk Bay started in November 1986.
75. In addition to continued development of the New Towns, the Hong Kong Government has also decided that a more systematic approach is necessary to the redevelopment of some of the older parts of the urban area. A statutory Land Development Corporation will be responsible for devising and imple- menting specific redevelopment schemes, either alone or in partnership with existing owners. The Provisional Board of the Corporation was formed in September and the planning of the first urban renewal projects is already underway.
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
76. During 1986 major efforts were made to speed up the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in camps in Hong Kong. Following the decision by Her Majesty's Government in September 1985 to accept some 500 refugees from Hong Kong for family reunion in the United Kingdom under relaxed criteria, a diplomatic campaign was mounted by Her Majesty's Government, supported by the Hong Kong Government, to persuade other countries to offer more resettlement places to Hong Kong. Many countries responded positively, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxem- bourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. For its part the Hong Kong Government decided to accept 250 more refugees of Chinese origin for local settlement.
77. In response to a request made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Hong Kong Government also agreed, in February 1986, to establish a transit centre in Hong Kong, to help facilitate the resettlement of refugees rescued at sea under the International Rescue at Sea Resettlement Offers Scheme.
78. However, eleven years after the end of the war in Vietnam there is still no durable solution in sight to the problem of the continuing exodus of refugees. During 1986 the number of Vietnamese refugees arriving in Hong Kong doubled compared with 1985. This was the first time that the rate of arrivals in the territory had increased since the implementation of the "closed centre" policy in July 1982. Much of the benefit from an improved rate of resettlement in 1986 was thus cancelled out by the large increase in the number of new arrivals in Hong Kong. Further, although some 3,816 refugees were resettled from Hong Kong in 1986 this level is unlikely to be maintained in 1987. The efforts of Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government thus brought a fall of 1,400 in the Vietnamese refugee population to the end of the year. But 8,039 remained to be resettled.
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