Response of the Hong Kong Institute of Land Administration to Ms Christine LOH's Article "Building on Solid Information" and to the HPLB booklet "All About Central Reclamation Phase III"

Today, Mr Peter Kwok on behalf of the Institute has written a letter to Ms. Christine LOH, the new Chairlady of the Society for Protection of the Harbour, echoeing the view for building up an integrated, accurate, accessible, and transparent information system in Hong Kong. The new system will be needed to achieve sustainable development for Hong Kong and to avoid the current pitfall of preparing development proposals based on outdated and fragmented information.

Ms LOH's article was entitled "Building on Solid Information" and published in the South China Morning Post on 24 December 2003.

At the same time, the Institute has in a separate letter, urged the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Bureau, Mr Michael Suen, to step up the transformation of the existing land information system into one that is more responsive to the public demand for rapid access to relevant and correct land information.

Mr Kwok admonished that Hong Kong would risk losing its competitive edge amidst other asian countries, including our Mainland counterpart, in terms of modernization of the land administration platform.

Mr Kwok stressed that in order to achieve sustainable development for Hong Kong, a modernized land administration system had to be put in place to manage the competing economic, environmental and social priorities that constitute Sustainable Development.

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