Gov’t allegedly in land debt for 30-hectare plots

The government is still carrying six land plot debts covering a total of 30 hectares, which equates to an area as large as 36 standard football pitches, according to All About Macau, a local Chinese monthly newspaper.
The report revealed that the government’s land exchange deal in 2001 for the Iec Long Firecracker Factory heritage site in old Taipa had involved an area comprising 15.2 hectares. However, the land debt generated in the deal is to date still unresolved, with 133,710 square meters still owed to the landholders.
The newspaper cited an instruction (No. 87/2006) issued by the then Secretary for Transport and Public Works, which reveals that the government had signed a letter of commitment in January 2001 with the landholder of the Iec Long Firecracker Factory. The landholder was a company headed by real estate mogul Sio Tak Hong, the founding chairman of the Macau Jiangmen Association. The deal saw the government agree to grant the company an equally sized land plot along the Baía de Nossa Senhora da Esperança near the Taipa Houses-Museum, in exchange for the firecracker factory area to build a theme park.
Creditors of the mentioned land debt are also believed to include Shun Tak Holdings Limited, led by Pansy Ho. It is reported that Ms Ho purchased the land title at a size of 99,000 square meters from Sio Tak Hong in 2002. However, the land exchange plan was then stranded due to the government’s commitment to wetland conservation in the Baía de Nossa Senhora da Esperança area.
The report further suggested that Shun Tak Holdings later successfully exchanged with the government for a land plot sized at 18,363 square meters in a prime location in downtown Macau, which was then used to build the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the One Central Residences.
The report also revealed five other land debts, the sizes of which range from 16,463 square meters to 64,518 square meters. The exchanged land plots were used to build the Golden Lotus Square, the Ilha Verde public housing complex, the MGM Macau, Wynn Macau Hotel, and Galaxy Macau’s Cotai project. BY