TNAG-2527-FCO40-3696-Hong-Kong-China-Relations-Committee-1992 — Page 104

3

(viii) annual increase of 10.5% in internal retail

productions;

(ix) annual increase of 10% in external trades to

reach US$11 billion in 1995;

(x)

general increase in all categories of

education facilities;

(xi)

control population increase to 15.5% per year;

(xii)

provision of 141,200 hospital beds by 1995.

[The PELB has approached the Guangdong

Provincial

Planning Commission for further details of the 8th Five

Year Plan.]

(c) All the ports in the Pearl River Delta are looking

forward to, and planning for, continuous growth in

throughput, which is projected to be as high as 30%

per annum in some ports. However owing to

geographical

restraints,

the ports though

increasingly containerized, can only take in ships

of very limited capacity. The message was clearly

that they will continue to have to rely on Hong Kong

for transhipment services, operating on a mid-stream

intention, nor have the

basis.

They have no

capability, to compete with the Hong Kong port.

The