Land experts on Thursday called on the government to bring in the private sector to help fast-track the development of the Northern Metropolis.

The comments come a day after Chief Executive John Lee said he will set up and lead a high-level committee to expedite the development, which involves turning 30,000 hectares of land near the border into an engine for economic growth.

Speaking on RTHK's Backchat programme, the chairman of Professional Property Services, Nicholas Brooke, suggested that the private sector should be involved in the planning process, and that dedicated resources are needed from both public and private sectors.

“I think there is the need to involve the private sector at a very early stage, not only to [figure out] what works, but where is the demand and where is the future demand because this is all long term so one has to project forward and think about where demand and what people would want in the longer term,” he said.

Brooke also noted that at the moment, the Northern Metropolis is very “government-led”, and recommended that authorities set up a dedicated agency to deliver the ambitious project.

During his Policy Address speech on Wednesday, Lee said there will be three separate working groups under the Committee on Development of the Northern Metropolis – one on devising development and operation models; another on the planning and construction of a university town; and the last focusing on managing the end-to-end process from planning to implementation.

Our Hong Kong Foundation’s Head of Land and Housing Research Jason Leung, expressed the hope that private companies could be involved in the project under these working groups.

“[They can take on] a major role in trying to attract enterprises, devise those commercial terms and hopefully, bring some attractive commercial proposals in for Hong Kong,” Leung told RTHK, adding that public-private coordination will be beneficial for development.

“Hopefully there can be some sort of job distribution or specialisation that will make the process better.”

Rita Li, the Director of the Sustainable Real Estate Research Centre, Professor at the Department of Economics and Finance at Shue Yan University, also brought up the possibility of tapping into Hong Kong’s academic power to fuel development.

“We can make good use of what we have in terms of research and development and devise some incentives for these university students, PhD students and research students to start startups, [allowing them] to turn their concepts and research into products.”

The chief executive has set a target of introducing a bill for the dedicated legislation to accelerate the Northern Metropolis' development within 2026.