Hong Kong’s last sawmill faces closure amid development plan

HONG KONG (AP) — Chi Kee Sawmill & Timber, Hong Kong’s last operating sawmill, has been processing timber in the city for 75 years.

Soon the family-run factory near the territory’s border with mainland China might be forced to shut down as part of a development project: it received notice earlier this year it had to vacate its current premises, which it has occupied for nearly four decades, to make way for a development project.

Hong Kong residents have been visiting Chi Kee to buy bits of the wood piled high up around the sawmill and collect a small piece of Hong Kong’s heritage.

According to the local newspaper South China Morning Post, Chi Kee was supposed to have left by June 30, but it has been unable to move because of the tons of timber remaining there.

Today, woodworking factories like Chi Kee have become a sunset industry in Hong Kong, now that mass-produced, imported furniture has become readily available. Most sawmills either have closed down or moved across the border into China, where manufacturing costs are cheaper.

The factory was set up in 1947, around the time when Hong Kong’s woodworking industry began and the city became known for manufacturing furniture. It first was located on Hong Kong island but in the 1980s it moved to Kwu Tung, a rural area in the New Territories.

That area is slated for development under Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis plan.