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How two British ports owned by Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison will help UK pivot to Asia after Brexit

  • Felixstowe and Harwich, on England’s east coast, are part of the Freeport East plan designed to create low-tax, low-regulation zones
  • China has been closely monitoring the Freeport East developments as relations with London have soured

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Felixstowe is the UK’s largest container port, with about 40 per cent of market share, and it already takes in much of the trade from Asia. Photo: AFP
Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison’s ports division has secured a strategic win from the UK’s post-Brexit pivot towards Asia.
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Two of Hutchinson’s three ports on England’s east coast, in Felixstowe and neighbouring Harwich, were last week named in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget speech among the country’s first eight “free ports”.

Free ports are low-tax, low-regulation zones where goods can enter duty-free and leave again without passing UK customs. They are a favourite project for the chancellor, who wrote a policy paper about them five years ago while still a backbench MP.

Felixstowe and Harwich are part of the regional Freeport East plan, which has been promoted as a hi-tech “global free port for a global Britain” with its own 5G network. The government estimates 13,000 jobs could be created at the site.
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. Photo: Reuters
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. Photo: Reuters
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The other free ports will be in Liverpool, Plymouth, Humberside, Teeside, Southampton, Thames near London and East Midlands airport, Britain’s busiest freight airport.

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