Hong Kong can ride waves to once again become top maritime centre
- Series of government proposals, including developing city as green shipping hub, aims to restore leading international position
Hong Kong’s prosperity is rooted in its maritime history. Gifted with a sheltered deep-sea harbour and strategic location on the Far East trade routes, it evolved into a world port city late last century with a container throughput unrivalled by others.
However, regional counterparts gradually caught up amid a shifting trading landscape and intensifying competition.
The 14th five-year plan and the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area fully recognise, among other things, the city’s role as a seafaring centre and seek to strengthen its high-value-added maritime and logistics services and status as a transshipment hub. The goals were also reiterated by President Xi Jinping to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu during his recent duty visit to Beijing.
The plan announced by the Transport and Logistics Bureau is a positive step on this front. It lays out 10 strategies and 32 actions to lift Hong Kong’s status as an international maritime centre, including developing the city as a green shipping hub with zero carbon emissions, smoothing the way to smart port development and maritime digitalisation.
It also aims to enhance the city’s seafaring influence through Greater Bay Area and international cooperation, as well as the exploration of further tax concessions to attract international maritime enterprises.
The industry is an important economic component, contributing about HK$111.8 billion, or 4.1 per cent of the city’s gross domestic product, and some 78,400 jobs, or 2.1 per cent of those currently employed. At present, there are more than 1,100 port and maritime companies here providing a diverse range of services.
In 2021, a total of 62,477 seagoing vessels and river-trade vessels arrived in Hong Kong.
Impressive as it seems, the performance is far from the golden years of between 1987 and 2004 when the city was crowned the world’s No 1 container port. The shifting shipping patterns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and growing geopolitical tensions have further disrupted supply chains and reduced reliance on transshipments, which accounted for 60 per cent of the city’s container throughput.
Hong Kong plans to develop ports into leading international maritime centre
But Hong Kong should not concede too readily. With its geographical location, unique institutional advantages, free economic system and rich experience in international business and trade, it still has got everything to make it a leading shipping hub.
While a return to the helm may appear a tall order, the city can still compete by going green, linking up strategically with other ports in the region as well as moving up the high-value chains.
