The traditional government inertia means Hong Kong’s inexorable transition to a transshipment port will continue.
A government run by bureaucrats is no place for mavericks. Innovative thoughts or visionary leanings held by civil servants are quickly discovered and excised.
Such is the practice in Hong Kong, ensuring that by the time a civil servant rises through the ranks to assume a policy setting position, he or she will have been thoroughly lobotomized.
So it should come as no surprise that in outlining the 2012-13 budget on Wednesday, financial secretary John Tsang trotted out the same old blather.
The government promised to facilitate and identify, to consider proposals and commission studies. It will assess impacts, reinforce clusters, and will strengthen plans and join hands while promoting and encouraging. How nice. What it won’t do is actually do something.
The strength of Hong Kong’s port is based on its container shipping. There is a large maritime industry in the city but shifting boxes underpins it all. Associated with the arrival and departure of those containers is the huge forwarding and logistics business that is generated by handling the cargo volume.
However, that cargo volume is steadily falling. The throughput figures are misleading in that of the 24.4 million boxes that crossed Hong Kong’s wharves in 2011, an increasing percentage are arriving on vessels from other ports and being transshipped. By contrast, the direct export of cargo from South China is on the decline as it is diverted to cheaper ports in Shenzhen, or even to the Maersk Line base in Nansha.
This is a crucial point because in terms of economic value, direct exports trucked in to the port bring in a good 30 percent more than transshipment containers that are merely thrown off one vessel, moved along the quay and chucked on another.
Hong Kong’s 2011 throughput was up three percent, but transshipment now comprises more than 60 percent of the volume. And don’t forget that boxes in transit are counted twice.
In his budget, Tsang again raised the Container Terminal 10 issue and said cargo forecasts would be updated in a new “Study on the Strategic Development Plan for Hong Kong Port 2030”. I bet the consultants paid to draft the study are working out of their new homes on the Peak.
The study also plans to “explore how to make better use of the existing port facilities in support of future development”.
The last Study on the Strategic Plan for Blah Blah Blah 2020 is now gathering dust in some government dungeon, but many of its findings are as relevant now as they were when it was released several years ago. It certainly explored how to better make use of existing port facilities to support development, highlighting the crucial need for additional container yard space.
The old study also provided a blueprint for how to reduce the costs of shipping a container from Hong Kong viz-a-viz Shenzhen. For instance, it covered the fact that Terminal Handling Charges were too high and had to be cut, delays at the border had to be reduced so truckers could make more than one trip a day, and mainland truck drivers should be allowed to drive in Hong Kong and drop off containers at the port.
The new study – if researched properly and in the unlikely event it manages to escape being “sanitized” should it not conform to the pre-conceived ideas of Hong Kong’s visionary leaders – will most likely have the same conclusions that were reached almost decade ago.
What is of great concern, however, is that if the measures required to improve Hong Kong's port competitiveness were regarded as “mission critical” by the Masterplan study 10 years ago, what could they be labeled today.