MACAO & HENGQIN: OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD

Cecilia, Ma Hei Man
Cristal, Chan Kai Ian
Tony, Lai Chou In
Wendy, Wong Weng Si

Continuous waves of low-pitch noises are resonated through the whole area, together with rocks and boulders kept bumping to each other at the back of the trucks. Whenever a truck drives past the terrains with towering piling rigs and drillers, a new cloud of dusts and sands is born to join its peers permeating in the air and acting as hair clay in people’s hairs.

The traces of the dusts can still be found in the more populated area, where bricks ??grey, red, white ??can almost be found in every corner of the streets, together with apartment rental advertisements stuck or hanged everywhere.

It’s no doubt that this space has been undergone series of developments and it is unarguably clear, from an oversea view of casinos, that this once-a-village space is Hengqin Island.

Hengqin Island - connected to Macao through the Lotus Bridge and the pier at Coloane - is about three times as big as Macao whose total area is 29.7 km sq till 2010, mostly with mountains and open areas. Its population of around 4,000 to 6,000 people is about 90 times smaller than Macao.

This rural island has not come to people’s attention till recent years, as a pioneer project to illustrate the cooperation between China, Hong Kong and Macao, according to the wish of the Chinese government. While this project is expected to bring more spaces and opportunities to Macao, it certainly pushes Hengqin to a new level.

Hengqin Brings Spaces to Macao

The Hengqin project has been in discussion for several years. Yet, it first came to the table in January 2009 when Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping said that Guangdong and Macao would work together to develop Hengqin, helping diversify the development of Macao.

Liu Bolong, professor of University of Macau and director of Social Science Research Center on  Contemporary China, shared with Umac Bridges, “Macao is lack of land. Developing Hengqin, a large piece of land just next to Macao, is beneficial to both places.”

The overall development plan of Hengqin Island was passed by the Chinese government in 2009, the same year that Hengqin was regarded as Hengqin New Area, the third state-level new area in China. This plan gives rights to Macao in developing a 5 sq km land in the east of Hengqin with Guangdong. Among the land, one-fifth is rental to University of Macau for its campus for 40 years.

Legislator and developer Lau Veng Seng told Umac Bridges, “Hengqin is a virgin land and it can provide resources, in terms of space and manpower, for Macao to strive for its position as an international leisure center.”

Both governments of Guangdong and Macao signed Guangdong-Macao Cooperation Framework Agreement on March 6, 2011, placing emphasis on and refining the details of their joint development on Hengqin. In their key joint industrial zone, both parties aim to develop Chinese medicine, education and training, and creative industries, which Lau labeled as the “high productivity industries”.

“With the appropriate use of spaces in Hengqin, the rental costs for the local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be reduced,” said Lau. “For manpower, Hengqin can attract and recruit quality personnel from all parts of the world.”

The Macao government has several preferential policies for the local enterprises to invest in Hengqin while there are procedures to facilitate the cross-border movement between the two places, according to the official presentation session on Guangdong-Macao Cooperation Framework Agreement in this August.

But Liu had doubts on whether this project can have direct impact on the diversification of the local economy because the diversification does not occur inside Macao.

“The houses, training centers and government departments can move to Hengqin while the precious spaces left in Macao can be used for the diversification of the economy,” said Liu, adding that this idea may be difficult to implement as the use of land in Hengqin is not up to the sole decision of the Macao government.

While one of the pressing issues -- the housing problem -- has still not been solved through the current mode, Liu thought the government could ask for more land from the central government as the land in Hengqin is so “precious” to Macao. 

Alternative Views: Changes in Hengqin

While some Macao residents focus on what opportunities and spaces can this development bring to Macao, some of them emphasize on what changes are brought to Hengqin.

Frank Lei, artistic director of Macao OX Warehouse, organized a photo exhibition about Hengqin during July and August this year, aiming to let more locals know more about this place in terms of its history and culture.

“Hengqin was a village, a typical one to be found in China, but it has changed a lot due to the development,” said Lei, adding a lot of its culture like old huts and red forests are vanishing.

A young local photographer Wong Kei Cheong, who also joined the Hengqin photo exhibition, thought that Hengqin now gives him a feeling of desertedness with the trucks and construction sites. “It has changed a lot in such a short period of time, somehow like Macao. There were some traditional grocery stores and fields when I went there a few years ago. But now they’ve almost gone,” said the young photographer.

Wong Io Man, in his fifties, who has moved from Hengqin to Macao since his teens, found his childhood in Hengqin was happier, when he could run from a mound to another and catch fish or oyster from ponds. “Now it’s all about money,” said he.

Yet, Lau agreed that the development of Hengqin cannot keep the culture and environment completely intact, but it’s a “tradeoff”. “If you want to have development, you must have sacrificed something to get more,” said the legislator.

Opportunities in the Development

The development has also turned a new page for Hengqin. It’s no longer a rural open area with rocks and trees, but a place with construction sites, trucks, and piling rigs. For the future, when the high-profile projects have been completed, an open island suited for business, residence, and technology facilities is waiting ahead, as claimed in the overall development plan for Hengqin in 2009.

“There have been a lot of infrastructures in these recent years,” said Li Liang, a tourist driver who has been living in Hengqin since he was 14. “With no doubt, I welcome Macao and other regions to come to develop Hengqin. It was a land with nothing, but it has more and more chances now.”

The opportunities are not only for the foreign investments like Macao, but also for Hengqin residents.

Once there were two cotton trees in front of a restaurant which was expropriated by the government for development. In return of the two cotton trees with years of history, the government paid the owner 1,500 yuan for each tree. This news was spread among the public and everyone vied for the compensation by planting the seeds of cotton trees in their land. “Home for Cotton Trees” is what the Zhuhai media used to describe this frenzy.

“But they couldn’t get what they wanted as the government was smarter,” said Li. “The authority set restrictions regarding the compensation on the cotton trees.”

This quest for cotton trees might have been stopped but the frenzy is yet to cease.

NO MORE HUTS?

There are 11 villages in Hengqin and most of the villagers live in their self-built houses. With the recent favorable policies and development projects, home prices keep rising in these few years.

“It cost 600 yuan to rent a one-bedroom flat two months ago, but it costs 800 yuan now. I think it will be getting higher and higher after the settle down of University of Macau,” a Hengqin estate agent Xie Sulian said.

With the consecutive increase on home prices, the villagers adopt a wait-and-see approach and thus the housing market has slowed down. Many are waiting for the price appreciation or the housing requisition from the Chinese government in return of compensation. The compensation will be decided, basing on the house dimensions and the number of floors. So many houses can be rented but not be bought.

“Most of the houses in Hengqin are newly-built with floor additions. The owners are waiting for the government requisition of their lands, which might cost at least 25,000 yuan per sq m,” said Zhao, who has been living in Hengqin for 18 years and owns a few of five-story self-built houses.

Their houses are usually four-story or five-story high, as the authority would not compensate from the sixth story or upwards. The old huts or houses with two stories are not the trend now, so they will rebuild their houses to maximize the compensation for the land requisition, or build one when there is land.

Zhao also seizes the chance and invests on the houses with the ownerships of lands entitling to the others. Once the lands are expropriated for development, he can share a proportion of the compensation with the owner.

Besides the compensation, the residents can move to New Home residential area, which is still under construction for the relocation of the villagers whose land is expropriated, too.

Chen, a Hengqin villager for over 20 years, thinks differently. “Many locals follow the trend of using up their money to build five-story houses for the compensation,” said he. “But who knows when the requisition can happen.”

More Job Openings

Another villager Cao, who is unemployed but catches fish as his interests, expects other opportunities like the job openings propelled by the economic cooperation between Macao and Hengqin. “When the constructions are completed, there must be many jobs available in Hengqin and what I can do is to stay prepared,” he said.

Hengqin residents can indeed gain more job opportunities from the foreign investments. Eight entrepreneurs held two job fairs at the end of this October, which in total provided about 200 job vacancies of more than 30 different types of works.

“The infrastructure construction provides more opportunities for us. Before, Hengqin residents suffered from hunger and wandered around with no productivity. Now, men can work as security guards while women can work as cleaners for the construction sites,” another local Ao Yu said.

The Diminishing Industry

The requisition does not only affect the residents, but it also influences the former main industry of Hengqin ??oyster industry. The number of oyster fields drops and there are not many places to eat oysters now because of the massive construction projects.

Zhi, owner of an oyster export company, moved his company to a new location after the land requisition. “If the government expropriates my land again, I may move back to my hometown Yangjiang and continue running my business there,” said the company owner.

“Hengqin development is mandatory so we have to give up the land. The government will give me a reasonable compensation for the requisition but the payment is only once,” said Wang, another owner of an oyster company. “I do not know what to do for the rest of my life without my oyster fields.”

While the owners may not express their unwillingness in the land requisition explicitly, there are still a few Hengqin residents that are deviant from this mainstream frenzy. Their voice may not be heard but can be found in banners along the new-built roads saying “Against the mandatory land requisition from the government”.

“I miss about the old times when people were not longing for spaces to build houses, the times when life is simple,” said Wong Io Man, who is experiencing the rapid changes of his hometown Hengqin, in a nearby city Macao.