30. Very considerable sums have also been spent over the years on port and airport development. The port of Hong Kong loads and
discharges almost 80 million tons of cargo a year, more than double
the amount handles in 1980. The container port at Kwai Chung is now the busiest in the world in terms of throughput and there have also
been rapid increases in the shipment of non-containerised cargo.
This has been largely brought about by the explosive growth in the
re-export trade in recent years and the transhipment of increasing amounts of Chinese imports and exports through Hong Kong.
31. Hong Kong International Airport is now the second busiest in
Asia. Over the past two years passenger movement has increased by
40% and aircraft movement and freight traffic by around 30%. The
present airport will reach the limit of its capacities sometime in
the 1990s. Serious consideration is being given to the building of
a new airport, at a cost estimated at HK$40,000 million (over £3,000
million).
32. Other large public utility investments include electric power
stations, the water supply and telecommunications. The two
privately owned, but government regulated, electricity companies
have each built large new generating stations in the past decade
which can be run on either coal or oil. The complex at Tap Shek Kok
in the North West New Territories, when fully completed next year,
will have a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts, making it one of the
largest in the world. Hong Kong also plans to buy up to 70% of the electricity generated from the nuclear power station at Daya Bay in China now being built by a Chinese/Hong Kong joint venture company.
33. Continuous investment has also been necessary to meet the
territory's ever increasing demand for water. Until the early
1980's the greater part of the supply came from a series of
reservoirs and associated catchment areas constructed within Hong
Kong itself. Today, however, more than a half of Hong Kong's water supplies are bought from China but investment in large treatment and
distribution works is still required in Hong Kong itself.
Responsibility for water supplies lies with the government's Water
Supplies Department.