Editorial | Opportunity docks for Hong Kong in provision of maritime services
The city cannot hope to compete with China ports on cargo handling, but it leads in terms of legal, logistical and professional know-how
Once the world’s premier shipping hub, Hong Kong has been steadily losing business in cargo handling to ports on the mainland, which offer the most advanced logistical technologies at highly competitive prices. What the city has, though, are legal, logistical and other professional services that are essential to the smooth operations of the global shipping industry.
These are insurance, legal contracts, shipbroking, financing and dispute resolution for which Hong Kong enjoys a unique advantage over the mainland – not least the common law system it offers international shippers. In an increasingly complicated geopolitical environment, such services will become even more important.
And yet, such services have been relatively neglected because the city has long been fixated on cargo-handling volumes, a commercial battle we cannot win with such behemoths as the Ningbo-Zhoushan and Shanghai ports, two of the country’s largest and most hi-tech.
At the launch of the Hong Kong Chamber of Shipping of which he is a co-founder, former chief executive Leung Chun-ying argued the city had a unique opportunity to answer the call of the third plenum of mainland leaders to develop its shipping industry in cooperation with the mainland. We should not compete for volume, a fool’s game, but for professional services, of which the city already has plenty of expertise to build on, not to mention career prospects for young and ambitious professionals.
Leung is right. Kwai Tsing Container Terminals failed for the first time to rank among the world’s top 10 ports last year, according to shipping data provider Alphaliner. It was ranked 11th, while six of the top 10 were mainland ports – Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Shanghai.
