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HONG KONG (AP) — Chi Kee Sawmill & Timber, Hong Kong’s final working sawmill, has been processing timber within the metropolis for 75 years.

Quickly the family-run manufacturing unit close to the territory’s border with mainland China could be pressured to close down as a part of a improvement undertaking: it acquired discover earlier this 12 months that it needed to vacate its present premises, which it has occupied for almost 4 many years, to make manner for a improvement undertaking.

Hong Kong residents have been visiting Chi Kee to purchase bits of the wooden piled excessive up across the sawmill and accumulate a small piece of Hong Kong’s heritage.

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In accordance with the native newspaper South China Morning Publish, Chi Kee was purported to have left by June 30, nevertheless it has been unable to maneuver due to the tons of timber remaining there.

Right now, woodworking factories like Chi Kee have grow to be a sundown trade in Hong Kong, now that mass-produced, imported furnishings has grow to be available. Most sawmills both have closed down or moved throughout the border into China, the place manufacturing prices are cheaper.

The manufacturing unit was arrange in 1947, across the time when Hong Kong’s woodworking trade started and the town turned identified for manufacturing furnishings. It first was positioned on Hong Kong island however within the Eighties it moved to Kwu Tung, a rural space within the New Territories.

That space is slated for improvement beneath Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis plan.

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It’s a blueprint for creating land near China’s border into an IT hub that would present tens of hundreds of jobs and houses within the densely populated metropolis, the world’s costliest property market.

The plan additionally is supposed to combine Hong Kong, a former British colony with its personal financial system, extra intently with neighboring Shenzhen, throughout the border.

“Again then, we thought that this was a distant space, it received’t be affected, however who knew that it’d grow to be one of the necessary areas for improvement?” mentioned Wong Hung-kuen, Chi Kee Sawmill & Timber’s director.

“So we have to hand it over to our nation as a result of the land belongs to the nation. We simply hope to get some help and sympathy from the federal government,” mentioned Wong, who gave up on a dream of turning the sawmill right into a museum.

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Hong Kong’s Improvement Bureau, which is in control of the town’s city planning, mentioned in a press release that Chi Kee Sawmill & Timber was notified it will want to go away within the second half of 2021, however that was prolonged to the tip of June 2022, “which ought to have left adequate time for the operator to rearrange elimination and if obligatory relocation.”

Chi Kee was supplied land compensation, compensation for disruptions attributable to the event undertaking and help with planning, it mentioned.

Though authorities have supplied to assist get rid of Chi Kee’s leftover timber, Wong desires to show it into merchandise reminiscent of furnishings, which he says can be much less wasteful.

For now, it’s unclear when Chi Kee will shut down for good.

Native conservationists like College of Hong Kong’s assistant professor Yu Ka-sing say that whereas the sawmill is appreciated by the general public, it’s exhausting to protect it as a result of it lacks any historic or architectural significance.

Nonetheless, those that have flocked to Chi Kee after listening to its days are numbered say it represents part of Hong Kong’s heritage. Even a small piece of timber has grow to be one thing to carry onto in a quick altering metropolis.

Jones Kwong was amongst these guests.

“I feel it’s a pity. It’s the one one left on this conventional trade, and it’s going to be demolished quickly,” Kwong mentioned.