A Hong Kong official pledged Wednesday to study the hotel developers' request for the expedition of planning application approvals, as Hong Kong is facing a shortage of hotel rooms because of the influx of Chinese mainland tourists.

Secretary for Economic Development and Labor Stephen Ip made the pledge after meeting with developers, who are keen to go ahead with developments because they are optimistic that more tourists will come to Hong Kong in the years ahead.

"We have heard the view of the developers and we will follow up with the departments concerned," Ip said, adding that if all the planning applications are approved and materialized, there will be another 20,000 hotel rooms coming on-stream soon.

"Altogether we may be talking about over 30,000 additional rooms in the next five years," Ip said.

According to developers' estimates, about 12,000 additional rooms will be available in the next two years.

Hong Kong boasts over 42,000 hotel rooms. The city greeted 1.3 million visitors last month, up 78 percent from June.

 (People's Daily August 21, 2003)