4
1983 will be the fourth year of the operation of the Mass
Transit Railway which by then will be as much an accepted port of
life as the Cross Harbour Tunnel is today.
Communications on the Island will have been greatly
improved to the east by the completion of a new high speed road
to Shau Kei dan, and to the West by the Connaught Road high level
highway.
In parallel with these developments, the Country Parks
authority will have asserted a steadily increasing control over
wide areas of mountains and coastline to maintain and preserve
then for recreation and tourism, and prevent encroachment on
them for other purposes,
I have started by painting the picture in terms of
communications because the problem of access lies at the root of
the shortage of building land, which in itself represents one of
the greatest single impediments to economic and social expansion
in Hong Kong at the moment, and only if Hong Kong can expand can it
continue to prosper and provide the economic base for all the
social things that need to be done.
Turning now to the social programmes, by 1983, or rather
by the financial year 1983/84, Government financed housing will
have been completed since 1973/74 for 1,800,000 and it will be the
fifth consecutive year in which completions will have been for well
over two hundred thousand,
By 1983, it will have been five years since there were
assisted secondary school places for all ahildren leaving primary,
and three years since all children will have had at least nine years
/of free