Mega-city plans for Hong Kong

Hong Kong may seem crowded enough to the seven million people who live in small flats in high-rise neighbourhoods.

But government-backed planners say the city's future lies in numbers, big numbers.

They say Hong Kong should be merged with Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city across the border, to make a mega-city of 20 million people.

Only then can Hong Kong be one of the world's great cities, argues a research report by the government-linked Bauhinia Foundation.

"It is not only merging, it is really creating a metropolis between Hong Kong and Shenzhen," Anthony Wu, director of the Bauhinia Foundation, said.

"If you look at the long term competitiveness of Hong Kong, Hong Kong has only got seven million people, and... Shenzhen has 13 million people. You need to merge the two to create a bigger metropolis to take advantage of China and the world."

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