SOME INVESTORS have applied to the government for permission to operate ferry services between Tuen Mun and Macau and the Pearl River Delta (PRD). However, the Transport Bureau has delayed approving their applications, greatly to the applicants' and residents' resentment. If there were such services, things would be much more convenient for north-western New Territories residents who want to go to Macau or the PRD, and it would be in line with Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's strategic plan of making better use of the PRD hinterland. People cannot help asking why it remains impossible to offer the public such ferry services. The government has been saying it wants to remove obstacles to the market's smooth operation. However, it has delayed approving those applications, whose approval would bring about new jobs. How does the government propose to justify itself?.
Nearly one million people live in Tuen Mun, Yuen Long and adjacent areas (north-western New Territories). At present, a citizen living there must take a one-hour vehicle ride to Tsim Sha Tsui or Central if he wants to go to Macau or the PRD by ferry. Such a ride takes almost as much time as a ferry journey from Central to Macau. More important, Tuen Mun is nearer Macau and the Pearl River's mouth. It would take 10 minutes to 15 minutes less time for a jetfoil to travel from Tuen Mun to Macau than from Central. If there were a Macau ferry terminal there, north-western New Territories citizens going to Macau could save more than one hour and some money.
Two companies have applied to the government for permission to operate ferry services from Tuen Mun to Macau and Nansha. Last year 19 million citizens left Hong Kong by sea. Most of them went to Macau or the PRD. As one out of seven Hong Kong citizens live in north-western New Territories, one may infer that last year more than two million north-western New territories residents travelled to Macau or the PRD by ferry.