In an effort to find affordable space, cash-poor creative types flocked to former industrial centres like Kwun Tong, Wong Chuk Hang and Fo Tan, turning former meatpacking warehouses and textile storage facilities into low-cost studios, showrooms and boutiques.

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The initiative, CashBack for Communities, is a scheme which takes money recovered through proceeds of crime legislation and invests it in activities and facilities for young people at risk of turning to a life of crime.

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There are still plenty of hard-hat-only areas where construction workers are erecting bridges between buildings, turning paved areas into grassy outdoor gathering places and otherwise sprucing up and modernizing the facilities.

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The materials then goes through a multi-tiered supply chain where they are sold and possibly resold several times before reaching facilities that specialize in either cutting and polishing gemstones and diamonds, or turning raw precious metal into jewelry-grade material.

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