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With over 12,000 registered yachts but only around 4,300 berths, Hong Kong plans to boost its yacht tourism by adding about 1,100 berths at several locations: the proposed Airport Bay Marina, the Hung Hom harbourfront, the former Lamma Quarry and the expanded Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter. The projects are part of the city’s waterfront developments. Airport Bay Marina, for instance, was revealed in the Skytopia master plan, which includes an expanded AsiaWorld-Expo, a “jet fresh market” designed to rival Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market, and an art storage hub. The proposed Hung Hom waterfront development, meanwhile, plans to integrate the Hung Hom MTR station, Hong Kong Coliseum and harbourfront into a new retail and entertainment destination. This would revitalise underused land and could provide a crucial link between Tsim Sha Tsui promenade to the west, the future “Victoria Cove area” at To Kwa Wan and the Kai Tak Sports Park to the east. For Hong Kong, a city with nearly 1,200km of coastline, hundreds of islands and an iconic deepwater harbour at the southern tip of the Greater Bay Area, it makes sense to enhance its waterfront and yacht tourism. The Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong says the yacht industry could generate HK$4.5 billion (US$579 million) annually. This would be a tiny fraction of Hong Kong’s economy, which exceeded US$407 billion last year. But if the yacht industry is the bone, the meat on it would be the assets and investments brought in by the oligarchs and high-net-worth individuals – a fast-growing class on the mainland – attracted by the new marinas, if these marinas are sufficiently well designed, implemented and operated. Hong Kong has been aggressively strengthening its position as a global wealth management hub. With its expensive real estate, favourable tax rates with no capital gains or dividend tax, and now planned marinas for superyachts, is the city becoming China’s Monaco? Promoted as the world’s capital of luxury yachting, Monaco attracts over 40 per cent of all superyachts and the industry contributes to the port city’s economy through design, manufacturing, sales and management. Major industry events held there include the World Yachting Summit and Monaco Yacht Show, where the wealthiest brush shoulders with one another and discuss their new toys while yacht makers compare their latest offerings. It is no surprise an estimated one-third of Monaco’s residents are millionaires or billionaires, making it one of the world’s wealthiest states. But the reality might be less than rosy. Out of a population of about 38,500, according to an official census last year, less than a quarter were native Monegasques – most residents came from surrounding countries including France, Italy, Britain and Germany. Ultra-wealthy people are attracted to the city and its favourable tax conditions, including Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and tennis star Novak Djokovic. With no personal income tax, the authorities in Monaco have no procedures with which to track its poverty rates: officially the city state has no poverty to declare. Can a city really have no poor people? It sounds utopian – but it also implies there is no accommodation for anyone who cannot afford to live there. As we develop our marinas and yacht tourism, we should ask ourselves what kind of city Hong Kong aspires to be. The Monaco model, for lack of a better description, is a billionaires’ club: those who neither qualify nor fit in are dismissed. While we want to attract wealth to Hong Kong, we cannot lose sight of our social mandate to lift the grass roots and working class. We are failing miserably in addressing the city’s wealth gap. According to Oxfam Hong Kong’s report last year, almost 23 per cent of households still live in poverty and the wealthiest 10 per cent of households had a median monthly income 82 times that of the poorest 10 per cent. This is shameful. With close to 200 times the population of Monaco, Hong Kong has many layers of constituents to consider when formulating and implementing its policies. If we truly want to build an inclusive society, we do not need fancy slogans. Instead, we should consider devoting as many resources to our struggling classes as we channel in funding to build our shiny new infrastructure – whether for museums, stadiums, a private jet terminal, an airport city or, in this case, superyacht marinas. A comprehensive approach towards both ends of society would narrow Hong Kong’s wealth gap as we improve the quality of life for most, rather than the few. Otherwise, we risk finding everything from housing to services increasingly unaffordable, spiralling into a vicious circle where commoners and the underprivileged have no opportunity to climb the ladder at all. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos famously dismissed the idea of achieving work-life balance, calling it “debilitating” as it implies a trade-off between work and leisure. Instead, he advocates for work-life harmony: for different pieces of the puzzle to work in sync, enhancing and reinforcing one another. To borrow from one of the world’s most famous billionaires, harmony is not a zero-sum game where one’s win implies another’s loss. Most of us do not own a yacht. We know the berths are not for us. But we understand the city needs growth and new economic drivers. As long as policymakers allocate equal time and resources for the other end of society, we can create a stronger, healthier and more harmonious society for all.
