The Port and Airport Development Strategy (PADS) () is an infrastructure project in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

. It is better known as the Rose Garden Project ().

Background

In the early 1980s, the Hong Kong Government already foresaw the incapability of the existing

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

and

container port A container port or container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example train ...

to keep up with the growth of Hong Kong. The

blueprint A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets. Introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the process allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number ...

s for the new airport and container port had already been drawn. However, the government decided to postpone the plan owing to the uncertainty of Hong Kong's future. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the government reproposed the plan in order to restore

confidence Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having ...

among Hong Kong's populace. It presented a rosy picture for the future to the Hong Kong people in order to halt the wave of

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanent ...

Infrastructure

* Airport Core Programme (ACP) in North

Lantau Lantau Island (also Lantao Island, Lan Tao) is the largest island in Hong Kong, located West of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, and is part of the New Territories. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands Dis ...

* New container ports in Kwai Chung,

Stonecutters Island Stonecutters Island or Ngong Shuen Chau is a former island in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. Following land reclamation, it is now attached to the Kowloon Peninsula. Fauna The island once boasted at least three mating pairs of sulphur-crested co ...

Tsing Yi Island Tsing Yi, sometimes referred to as Tsing Yi Island, is an island in the urban area of Hong Kong, to the northwest of Hong Kong Island and south of Tsuen Wan. With an area of , the island has extended drastically by reclamation along almost all ...

and East Lantau (plans for the East Lantau port were later abandoned) * Railways * Highways

Politics

The government of

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(PRC) cast a great concern in the project for fear that the British would withdraw the

monetary reserve Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...

of Hong Kong to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

before the reunification with China 1997. There was a lengthy series of conferences on the matter. Some Chinese officials also urged a downscaling of the project such as building one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

at the airport instead of two. Transport in Hong Kong Urban planning in Hong Kong {{HongKong-stub