TNAG-0984-FCO40-1203-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1980 — Page 117

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The extent to which the local construction industry can sustain or expand its high level of building effort is limited by the availability of skilled labour, building materials and other resources. With the very high level of building development activity in both the public and private sectors in the past few years, it was evident that these limits had been tested. The provision of extra facilities depends not only on the building capability of the Public Works Department and the private sector but also the availability of finance, trained staff and the necessary sites in the right locations. To expand too quickly is to invite inflation, generating pressures which an export-oriented economy without natural resources - such as Hong Kong cannot prudently risk.

Housing

It is thought. that most new arrivals from China stay with friends or relatives in private housing, public housing or

squatter areas, thereby adding to existing problems of overcrowding.

As mentioned earlier, a feature of illegal immigrants arriving in the past two years is that their age and sex structure is markedly different from that of the established population of Hong Kong, in that more than 85 percent are under the age of 30, and 75 percent are males. While these people do not necessarily represent an immediate housing need because of the 7-year residence criterion, they will nevertheless create a considerable demand for future housing resources, a much greater demand than would have been the case through normal population growth of the same degree. Young males who have managed to settle in Hong Kong will in general marry and have children. One single male therefore represents a potential family of four or more members. Simple multiplication along these lines produces shattering results. The demand on Hong Kong's public housing stock that will eventually be made by the numbers that arrived in 1979 alone is equal to a full year's building, at a cost of $1,800 million at today's prices.

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