Xia Baolong, head of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, added a vital strategic dimension to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s new regional layout during his recent inspection tour of the Northern Metropolis. By elevating the concept of a “university town” into a macrospatial “university town district”, Xia has repositioned higher education from a localized development project into an integral part of the city’s long-term economic strategy. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s swift response — expanding the vision to encompass a 1,000-hectare-plus layout that integrates education, technology, talent, industry, and urban planning — signals that Hong Kong is ready to break old mindsets and embrace a bolder development strategy.
This significant upgrade fully aligns with the public consultation document for Hong Kong’s first five-year plan, which explicitly tasks the SAR government with “positioning the University Town as a key engine for Northern Metropolis development”. As a researcher currently leading a study on the development of the University Town sponsored by the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit, our analysis suggests that implementing this 1,000-hectare blueprint requires moving beyond a traditional, isolated campus design. Instead, Hong Kong needs a more-integrated approach that enhances the university-industry-community synergy, and establishes the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen area as the primary launchpad for this spatial transformation.
A phased roadmap for the Northern Metropolis
Historically, university towns have followed three distinct models, each creating a completely different relationship between schools and industries. The first is the traditional “campus” model, best typified by the Guangzhou University Town, which is government-administered and physically enclosed. It focuses strictly on teaching and basic research under a standardized school administration. While excellent for gathering academic talent, its walled design separates it from the market, making it a source of intellect rather than an interactive hub.
To break this segmentation, the market-driven “park” model emerged — as seen in Beijing’s Zhongguancun technology hub, Singapore’s One-North, and Japan’s Tsukuba Science City — which tears down physical walls to mix universities with corporate research and development centers, government labs, and venture capital. Governed by market rules, this model acts as a dynamic trading floor for innovation elements, effectively solving the “last-mile” bottleneck from lab bench to factory floor.
The third is the borderless “community” model — as represented by Silicon Valley and East London Tech City — which stands as the ultimate form of innovation. Here, the university is simply one ingredient in a larger social fabric. Entrepreneurs, investors, creators, and residents live and work in the same neighborhoods, relying on self-evolving social networks to build an open ecosystem in which everyone can innovate, creating an integrated loop where industry and daily life completely blur together.
The true success of this ambitious initiative will not be measured by the total area of land cleared or the height of the concrete structures erected. It will be judged by the density of the social networks we build, the fluidity of the capital we attract, and the speed at which a laboratory breakthrough in Hung Shui Kiu turns into an industrial application in Qianhai or San Tin
The Northern Metropolis University Town cannot afford to follow a single and rigid path. Located within a high-quality development zone, its construction must transcend traditional limitations by adopting a strategy of phased evolution tailored to its unique geography. In the short term, Hong Kong should leverage the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen area to prioritize the rapid import of premier university resources, focusing on talent cultivation and locking in a firm foundation for basic scientific research. As the project matures into the medium term, development should expand into areas like Ngau Tam Mei to explore a transitional hybrid model. This phase will directly link the emerging academic infrastructure with the large-scale research platforms and industrial demands of the San Tin Technopole, driving tech transfer and corporate colocation. In the long term, looking across the entire Northern Metropolis, the ultimate goal is to nurture a mature innovation community. Bringing urban spaces and innovation systems together will allow capital, talent, and professional services to move without barriers, turning the region into a vibrant international hub.
Why Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen is the ideal launchpad
Within this grand road map, the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen area stands out as the most logical and critical starting point. According to the Northern Metropolis Action Agenda, Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen is positioned as a “high-end professional services and logistics hub” connected with Qianhai. Compared to other segments of the Northern Metropolis requiring much longer infrastructure lifecycles, Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen possesses unique geographical advantages, and is more ready to deliver tangible results within the crucial five-year window of the current planning cycle.
Geographically, Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen is the closest node within the Northern Metropolis to the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone. This proximity places it at the very epicenter of cross-border institutional collaboration, serving as a physical and economic bridge connecting Hong Kong’s financial and professional services with Shenzhen’s advanced manufacturing and tech sectors.
Currently, Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen’s transit network is locking into place rapidly. The MTR Hung Shui Kiu Station will open by 2030, and the upcoming Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Rail Link will create a seamless, high-speed corridor straight into Qianhai. This guarantees that researchers, entrepreneurs, and global talent can move effortlessly between both sides of the border within a matter of minutes.
Accelerating industry-academia-research integration
More importantly, the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen area is already surrounded by a ready-made industrial fabric, including planned high-end logistics hubs, commercial centers, and smart manufacturing clusters. Early this year, the government established the Hung Shui Kiu Industry Park Co to develop and operate local industrial sites, as well as foster competitive industries backed by official support.
Unlike traditional projects, in which universities are built first and companies are invited years later, Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen allows for the simultaneous colocation of universities and industries within the next five years. By building academic facilities adjacent to existing corporate clusters, we can immediately establish industry-academia-research bases of collaboration. Universities entering Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen can collaborate with surrounding enterprises on day one to design tailored curricula, launch corporate-sponsored laboratories, and establish direct pipelines for tech commercialization. This immediate integration is vital for fulfilling the call of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) to “nurture talent in short supply at the national level and to meet Hong Kong’s development needs”, specifically, in “life and health technology, health and medical innovation, artificial intelligence, microelectronic technology, high-end professional services, smart manufacturing, and vocational and professional training”.
Innovative financing for rapid development
Of course, executing a mega-project of this scale in Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen requires immense financial agility. Historically, the construction of university facilities in Hong Kong has relied mostly on government block grants and public Treasury allocations. Given the fiscal adjustments now facing Hong Kong’s public purse, continuing this exclusive reliance on traditional government block grants is no longer realistic. While the government’s HK$10 billion ($1.28 billion) loan facility provides a vital catalyst, local universities must alter their traditional mindsets and actively engage with global capital markets to bridge the funding gap required for the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen launchpad.
Although debt issuance by universities is a relatively new concept in Hong Kong, it is a well-established practice among world-class institutions internationally. A notable precedent occurred in 2012, when the University of Cambridge issued 350 million pounds ($463 million) in long-term bonds specifically to fund the construction of its stem-cell research laboratories and new postgraduate student housing. Top-tier universities in Hong Kong also possess substantial institutional reserves and stable, long-term revenue streams that I believe make them highly attractive to institutional investors.
The market has already demonstrated this potential. In March, the University of Hong Kong signed a landmark $1 billion medium-term note framework program, and the first batch of HK$1 billion bonds were issued in June. Other local universities are now actively preparing to roll out similar debt-raising programs to diversify their funding channels. By utilizing innovative financial tools, including government-backed credit guarantees for long-term commercial bank loans, dedicated infrastructure bonds and green bonds, universities can spread their upfront capital costs over several decades, significantly easing short-term fiscal pressure on the public purse and accelerating the realization of the Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen launchpad.
Moving beyond real estate to real transformation
For decades, Hong Kong has treated urban planning and higher education as separate administrative exercises, but Xia’s call for a strategic transition toward a macro-spatial “district” provides a critical opportunity to break this long-standing isolation. If we approach this 1,000-hectare blueprint with the old mindset, we are highly unlikely to create an authentic innovation hub, and will instead end up with a high-end commuter zone that empties out at night. The true success of this ambitious initiative will not be measured by the total area of land cleared or the height of the concrete structures erected. It will be judged by the density of the social networks we build, the fluidity of the capital we attract, and the speed at which a laboratory breakthrough in Hung Shui Kiu turns into an industrial application in Qianhai or San Tin.
The author is an expert member of the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
