The City of Hong Kong - Research Paper Example

? The of Hong Kong Introduction The of Hong Kong is the most superior administrative region of China. The is positioned on the south coast of China (Cheng, 270). Hong Kong is connected with the South China Sea and Pearl River Delta. The city is popular around the globe for its enriched natural harbor and expansive skylines. The city is one of the most highly populated areas in the globe. Approximately seven million people used to stay in Hong Kong of which 95% of total population is ethnic Chinese and rest 5% belongs to other ethnic group. Geography Hong Kong is located on the east of Macau. The city is surrounded by the South Sea of China on the south, west and east and borders Shenzhen city to the northern part over the river of Shenzhen. The 426 sq m. territory consists of Kowloon peninsula, New Territory and Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong’s land area is the 179th largest populated territory in the globe. Despite of being intensely urbanized, the city has tried to promote a green pollution free environment. Recent growing concern of public about the environment has prompted the harsh restriction of future land reclamation. The city’s environment has suffered from the increasing population as well as from the ever increasing rate of pollution (Goldcast, 167). Nearly about 80% of the smog of Hong Kong used to originate from several parts of Pearl River Delta. Population Density The population density of Hong Kong is 6782.92 as reported in the year 2010. Population density in Hong Kong is 6696.5. In terms of population, it is the largest city within China. In Hong Kong, urban agglomerations’ population of more than 1 million is 6982287.0. In terms of percentage, it is more than 100%. Raw Material, Principle Products and Industries The city is not enriched with raw materials. The territory has limited natural resources and little arable land. Therefore, the city used to import most of its raw materials and foods from other countries. The agricultural activity is not that much important to the economy of Hong Kong. The agricultural activity used to contribute just 0.1% of its total GDP. The city is the 11th major trading entity of World. Moreover, Hong Kong is world’s largest re-export sector. The city is the major and one of the leading producer and exporter of textiles, watches, toys, apparels, plastics and electrical appliances (Siu & Ku, 159). In Hong Kong, the major leading industries are financial services, Tourism, Logistics & Trading and professional & producer services. These industries are the driving force of the economic growth of the country under consideration. These specific industries used to provide impetus to growth of various sectors and help to generate employment. Competitive Advantage and Production of Goods The logistics and trading industries used to consolidate different production and economic activities. Moreover, it used to help the problem of unemployment. This particular industry currently has employed more than 770,000 employees. This industry significantly contributes to one quarter of the Chinese GDP. Due to the drastic change in the market demand, the trading industry is tending to provide highly value added trading and logistic services. Hong Kong is gradually developing into regional distribution centre for its highly valued products. This used to differ from the conventional role in the transporting elements such as finished and semi-finished goods. The city has superior control over the distribution system of superior valued goods. Moreover, the logistics industry of Hong Kong has the potential to expand its regional services of trading and logistics. These are the competitive advantages of the Hong Kong trading that have strengthen the position of Hong Kong as the logistical hub. It has been discussed earlier that Hong Kong is not enriched highly with natural resources and raw materials. The city is famous for the apparel and textile goods, toys and electronic appliances. Currently the city has increased its import activities of these goods. It is evident that they used to produce these goods for trade. Growth Rate The GDP of Hong Kong has expanded by 0.20 percent in the early quarter of 2013. The GDP growth rate of the city has averaged by 0.97 % from the year 1990 to 2013. Since 2000, the economy of Hong Kong has grown at an average of 0.99% quarterly. The tight housing supply and high export reliance conditions are assumed as the greatest future threat for the city. It has been discussed earlier that financial services, Tourism, Logistics & Trading and professional & producer services industries are the driving forces of the economic growth of Hong Kong. These specific industries used to provide impetus to growth of various sectors and help to generate employment. Financial services used to cover an extensive range of services, such as insurance, banking, asset management, stock brokerage and other several financial services. In terms of Tourism, it covers all the outbound and inbound tourism. Outbound tourism used to cover reservation services, international transport services and many more. On the other hand, the inbound tourism used to cover retail trade, boarding houses and all form of domestic accommodation services. Logistics and trading used to process the planning, implementation and controlling the activities and storage of finished and semi-finished goods. Professional services used to cover accounting, architecture, technical, legal and auditing activities. On the other hand, producer services used to refer the utilized services by the organizations. Public Goods offered by Hong Kong Hong Kong is enriched with developed public goods. The city has huge availability of public parks, schools, hospitals, universities, industrial parks and transportation facilities. The list of the popular and most developed public goods has been highlighted below. Major Public Parks: Fa Huj Park, Jordan Valley Park, King’s Park, Quarry Bay Park, Blake Garden and Chain Wan Park etc. Schools: The schools used to follow UK English in terms of primary education. In the year 2000, it was measured that there are all total 59,408 public schools in Hong Kong. Major Public Universities are as follows: The University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and The Hong Kong Institute of Education etc. Major Public Hospitals: Kowloon Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Queen Mary Hospital, Kwong Wah Hospital, United Christian Hospital and Tang Shiu Kin Hospital etc. Major Public Industrial Park: Eco Park, Hong Kong Disneyland, Tai Po and Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks etc. Modes of Public Transport: Airport Express Train, Light Rail, Diamond Cab, Public Light Bus, Taxi, Bus, Ferries, Tram and Peak Tram etc. Urban Landscape Land Area’s proportion of Hong Kong is totally urbanized. It is originally very small and these urbanized city landscapes are the most memorable and diverse in Hong Kong. Basically, they are found majorly in Kowloon and Northern Island of Hong Kong. These have occupied almost 8% of total land area of Hong Kong. On the north shore of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island lies the traditional and oldest urban landscapes (Knowles & Harper, 41). These are characterized by irregular, dense and organic urban form. Moreover, the buildings stocks are generally of mixed ages. On the reclaimed shore of the Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, the commercial urban landscapes used to exist. These are characterized by the dense prestigious examples of architecture. At the borders of the urban area, the extensive urban residential landscapes used to exist. Finally, other urban areas have possessed their own idiosyncratic landscape including urban park, new towns, small townships and industrial areas. Housing in Hong Kong Housing in Hong Kong used to vary by income of people and location. The city is the 3rd expensive real estate place around the globe. The price of per square foot is 2,000 US dollar. According to the census 2006, total population of Hong Kong was 6.6 million. The percentage of public rental housing is 31. On the other hand the subsidized sale flats under Housing Authority of Hong Kong are 17.1% (man, 37). The percentage of private permanent housing and non-domestic housing are 49.3 and 1.2 respectively. In the year 2009, 54% of 2.4 million households were owner-occupiers. However, public housing is the major housing component of Hong Kong. In order to support this, the government of Hong Kong has commenced a mass public housing programs in order to provide affordable home for the people of middle and low income level. Hong Kong Crime Rate The crime rate of Hong Kong is significantly decreasing due to strong control of police and government over the social administration (Wong and Wong, 364). The crime rate in the year 2012 was 1064, where as the figure was 1074 in the year 2011. According to Police administration of Hong Kong, the crime rate has decreased due to the economic development of the country. Moreover, reducing problems like unemployment has motivated several numbers of Chinese people to lead a genuine social life. In terms of frequency and happening of crime activities like pickpocket, the sub urban area of Hong Kong is the most crime experiencing area (Chui & Lo, 49). But it has evidenced that due to control of police and government the crime rate is gradually decreasing. Transportation Issues The transport system in Hong Kong is highly developed and most significantly it is the second leading city within The Great Republic of China whose transportation used to play a major role in the GDP of the country (Mottershead, 211). The transport network of the city is very comprehensive. Still there are lots of transport problems that harass the daily life of city. The major problem in transport is the traffic congestion. Roads and tunnels in main city are quite narrow. The situation of this city gets worst during the busy hours. Inadequate distribution of Traffic is another transportation problem of Hong Kong (Kwong-Leung, 21). Due to ineffective price variance the cars and other vehicles used to utilize the cheaper and short distance routes. Government of Hong Kong has introduced several sub ways, by pass and over pass and has taken several initiatives, but they have to face huge difficulty in order to overcome this problem. Last but not the least; the increasing pollution rate is another concern for this leading city. As the economic situation of the country is growing effectively, the middle class, upper middle and upper class people are tending to purchase their own vehicles in order to satisfy their comfort level (Ofori, 103). Day by day the green house gas emission is increasing due to this factor. Government of Hong Kong and China did not take effective initiative in order to reduce this problem. Therefore, due to lack of environmental awareness, people of Hong Kong are avoiding consuming fuel efficient or the environment pollution efficient cars or other mode of transportation. Therefore, it is feasible that, slowly and gradually the environmental situation is getting worse due to this kind of transportation problem. State of Finance Hong Kong is one of the leading global financial centers around the globe. The service oriented economy of Hong Kong is characterized by near-free port trade, highly developed global financial market and low taxation rate. The economy had to face several distressed situations. The Asian financial crisis in 1997, European Financial crisis in 2008-09 and global economic recession in 2007-08 have negatively impacted the Chinese economy. But it is the strong administration and policy that has made the economy of Hong Kong recover from the problematic situation (Ma, 98). Growing international logistic and trading, increasing industries and business hubs within city has helped Hong Kong to overcome several problems. Major problem was unemployment in Hong Kong, but due to these activities the city has able to overcome this problem to some extent. The taxation rate of Hong Kong used to raise huge revenue and revenue could also be channelized through sale of land. Moreover, taxes on overall accumulative economic growth used to raise the revenue of the city. Taxation system of Hong Kong is not connected directly in commerce and industry. From the revenue, the government of Hong Kong used to build schools, roads, hospitals and other public infrastructure services and facilities (Ngo, 132). Moreover, the government of Hong Kong utilizes highly obtained public revenue for several welfare economical schemes. The strong banking control and administration monitoring has stabilized the economic situation of Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s Greatest Success and Challenges There can be several challenges and success factors of leading cities around the globe. Being one of the leading global city, there are several challenges and success of Hong Kong that are discussed below. Success Entry to the city or exit from the city for tourism or business travel is minimally restricted for both domestic and international traveler. Moreover, several geographical and historical advantage of this city has helped to grow tourism business. Effective family planning especially monetary planning of the households has provided major benefits to the economic development of the city (Cohen & Zhao, 236). It has minimized the risk of over population and unemployment. The local government of Hong Kong used to motivate and try to sharpen the skills and talents of every individual. Government has provided several facilities for specific skilled individuals in order to reduce the unemployment and crime level. The cultural sector is another potential area that has played an important role in the success story of Hong Kong. Well-managed government, administrative body and effective civil service operation have resulted peace and comfort in the life of citizens. A large group of skilled management in different public organizations and authorities has able to motivate the sub ordinates and other employees to perform effectively. It has increased the business output of Hong Kong. Moreover, several important aspects, such as strong banking and financial sector, comprehensive transport network, increasing urban landscape and effective economic situation has created the success story of Hong Kong. Challenges High growth rate of population has become one of the major challenges of the city. Several economic problems like unemployment, inadequate public distribution have taken place. The government is trying to control this by implementing several campaign and regulatory policies, but it will take long time to overcome this problem. In terms of transport, traffic congestion and green house gas emission are the two threats of the society and environment of Hong Kong (Hammond & Stapleton, 70). Moreover, due to transportation price variance between different destinations, the public cars and other public vehicles use cheaper and short distance routes. Government of Hong Kong has introduced several sub ways, by passes and over passes and also has taken several initiatives, but they have to face much difficulty in order to overcome this problem. The outside area of city is facing several social and economical conflicts due to the lack of availability of public resources. Works Cited Cheng, Joseph. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in its First Decade. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2007. Print. Chui, & Lo, Wing. Understanding Criminal Justice in Hong Kong. London: Routledge, 2008. Print. Cohen, & Zhao, Li. Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1997. Print. Goldcast, leo. Relucant regulators. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2011. Print. Hammond, & Stapleton, Kristin. The Human Tradition in Modern China. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Print. Knowles, & Harper, Douglas. Hong Kong. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Print. Kwong-Leung, Tang. Colonial State and Social policy. New York: University press of America, 1998. Print. Ma, Ngok. Political development in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2007. Print. Man, Joyce. China’s Housing Reform and Outcomes. Cambridge: Lincoln Inst of Land Policy, 2011, Print. Mottershead, Terri. Sustainable development in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2004. Print. Ngo, Tak-Wing. Hong Kong’s History. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. Ofori, Evertt. Guaranteed Formula for writing Success. New Jersey: CCB Publishing, 2011. Print. Siu, & Ku, Agnes. Hong Kong Mobile: Making a Global population. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2004. Print. Wong, & Wong, John. China’s political economy. Singapore: World Scientific, 1998. Print. Read More