editorial
the bulletin
Disney to benefit
local businesses
Hong Kong's proposed Disney theme park
should not be viewed as merely a commercial theme park project. It is more accurately
described as another major infrastructure project for the Hong Kong SAR with a theme park
at its centre. The announcement of the project, only the fifth Disney theme park
worldwide, has already focussed global attention on Hong Kong and provided a boost to
local confidence in the SAR's future development.
It is, in a sense, two separate projects.
The first of these is the $13.6 billion development of infrastructure related to the
Penny's Bay site. This includes two phases of land reclamation and development, the
provision of public services at the site (roads, drainage and other utilities) and the
creation of new transport links. The second is the theme park itself, to be developed at a
cost of $14.1 billion by a new company, Hong Kong International Theme Parks Limited, 57
per cent of which will be owned by the Government and 43 per cent by the Walt Disney
Company. Even this part of the project is divided in two; $6.6 billion for the theme park
itself and $7.5 billion for support facilities.
The injection of $27.7 billion in
Government and private sector expenditure into the local economy over the next five years
certainly will have a beneficial economic impact. It will aid the construction sector
directly and indirectly support all those small- and medium-sized enterprises that service
it. It will also provide a boost to the job market, both during construction and in
operation beyond 2005.
When opened, the Disney theme park and its
ancillary attractions will also provide business opportunities for the SAR's vast range of
small- and medium-sized businesses, from suppliers of foodstuffs, to tour operators and
travel agents. It will add an entirely new dimension to the local tourism industry,
encouraging existing visitors to stay longer and new visitors to decide on Hong Kong as a
destination. It will enhance the SAR's regional and global image and may even provide a
boost to our information technology and higher technology sectors through its demand for
high technology equipment and people with skills in these areas.
Critics of the project have been many and
varied since it was announced, ranging from those who doubt the economic and financial
viability of the project through to those concerned about its environmental impact and on
to those worried about the importation of America culture rather than encouraging the
development and popularising of our own.
They are all likely to be proved wrong.
Government and Disney studies based on a range of tourist arrival numbers shown the
project to be enormously viable and profitable in the medium to longer term. So, too, do
the results from the Disney projects in the U.S., Japan and France. The Hong Kong
Government is now more environmentally aware than it has ever been and is not about to let
this new project set back these new environmental efforts. The SAR Government has also
done more than any other Hong Kong Administration to propagate and encourage Chinese
culture. It is not about to let that record slip either.
For all these reasons and more, the Chamber
has come out in strong support of the Disney theme park initiative and it will continue to
do so. The benefits of the project will become more obvious the closer it comes to the
opening date in 2005. In the meantime, we will continue to support the Government's
decision in the interests of the future development of Hong Kong as a
"world-class" city and Asia's premier visitor destination.
C C Tung
HKGCC Chairman |
