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The New Territories (NT) development not only concerns the interests of the area itself but also carries Hong Kong's future.

Since Hong Kong became a free port for international trade, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon have almost run out of space for further development in the past 150 years. To meet the need for continued economic growth for the sake of people's livelihood it is without question a must to shift the focus of development to the NT in the years to come.

The reality is that Hong Kong's overall development has run into a bottleneck and many aspects of the economy are faced with one shortage or another, of which the most outstanding has to be housing shortage. That is why it is the majority consensus of society to significantly increase residential housing supply. With very limited room left for housing development in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon there is no doubt the NT will be the main source of land supply for residential development, including the construction of large new towns.

There is no question that NT development is fraught with conflicts of interest. First of all, there is the conflict between macro-economy and micro-economy: should NT development serve the overall interests of Hong Kong first, or that of the NT community only? Then there is the conflict between development and conservation: should NT land be used for urbanization focused on high density residential and business facilities or maintain the traditional rural features such as farming and low-density villages? There is also the question whether NT development should satisfy local residents' needs only or those of visitors as well by building tourist facilities?

One thing is certain: most of these conflicts can be resolved with a balanced approach, including appropriate compensation for local residents affected by urban development and building tourist facilities away from residential areas.

It is particularly important that public consensus is built "from the ground up" on NT development with adequate public consultation to gather popular opinion and emphasis on people-centric thinking. Such an approach is vital to carrying out NT development amid growing attempts by ill-motivated forces to politicize everything.

This is an excerpted translation of a Hong Kong Commercial Daily editorial published on Aug 5.

(HK Edition 08/06/2013 page1)