5. This appears to be a significant weakness of Zhuhai's present situation. The disappointments of the off shore oil industry in the South China Sea have proved a major blow and it is hard to see from which direction adequate relief might be forthcoming. Moreover this misfortune is compounded by the shortcomings of the area's transport links, both internally with other cities in China and externally with foreign parts. The harbour can only take ships up to 10,000 tons and needs dredging daily; there is no railway; no first class motorway and no airport. Visitors from abroad usually arrive by ferry from Hong Kong where the vast bulk of Zhuhai's imports and exports are also transhipped.
6. Looking to the future there is talk of the possibility of a new deep water harbour; better founded hopes of a rail link with Canton, and a start has actually been made in Shenzhen (on the Hong Kong border) on a super highway which it is planned will eventually open up much of the prosperous Pearl River delta, including Zhuhai. More immediately, within the past week it has emerged that the Chinese Government is almost certainly prepared to throw its support behind the project to build an international airport in Macao which will serve Zhuhai's needs also. (Zhuhai itself will probably confine its own plans to maintaining a helicopter service to Canton and Hong Kong).
7. There are, therefore, grounds for cautious optimism about the prospects for Zhuhai's economic development in the not too distant future, though it may find progress somewhat slow to achieve in the shorter term. But taking things all in all it still remains difficult to see how Zhuhai and Macao
can avoid continuing to be overshadowed by their more richly endowed neighbours, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, on the eastern side of the Pearl River estuary.
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Every effort is made to ensure that the information given herein is accurate, but no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors or omissions in that information and no responsibility is accepted in regard to the standing of any firms. companies or individuals mentioned.
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