ENG-1963 — Page 18

1

Review

LAND

LAND has always been a paramount factor in Hong Kong's economy. Despite, or indeed because of, the limited area of the Colony, dealings in land and its development constitute a signifi- cant part of the day-to-day financial transactions of the community and impinge on the daily life of almost every citizen.

In the financial year 1962-3 the number of private land assign- ments was 10,553 and the stated value of these transactions $1,066 million. Over the same period the gross revenue from all forms of land transactions conducted by the Government amounted to $234 million-one-fifth of the total and the second highest head of revenue for that year. In addition, revenue from rates was $128 million and from Crown rents $2.4 million. Expenditure by the Government on new buildings amounted to $162 million, whilst private enterprise completed 1,075 buildings at a total cost of $370 million, an average of just over one million dollars a day.

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To support this expansion the Government spent $150 million on civil engineering works, including $120 million for additional water supplies. The 1961 census gave 58,209 people as employed in the building industry, a figure somewhat greater than the number engaged in either farming or fishing. Of the 1,149 new companies registered during the year 437, or 38 per cent were incorporated specifically to invest in land and buildings and it has been estimated that capital in the order of $2,000 million is at present tied up in private development projects of one form or another.

Land is the base of all human activity and the source of all wealth; it supplies the raw materials, the soil, water, minerals, animal resources and other attributes of nature which are essential to man's development and well-being. In an expanding community land is in ever increasing demand for the construction of new towns, of schools, hospitals, universities and clinics, for factories,