Hong Kong, the world's busiest container port, is expected to see a rise in throughput this year, but operators are urging the city to cut red tape to help them compete with cheaper ports in neighbouring Shenzhen.
Container terminals in the Kwai Chung basin, Hong Kong's main facility, will show 5 percent traffic growth in 2004 and total throughput for the city, including mid-stream operations and river trade terminals, should rise 10 percent, said Alan Lee, Chairman of Hong Kong Container Terminal Operators Association Ltd.
That compares with 7 percent growth in total Hong Kong traffic in 2003. At Kwai Chung, traffic rose 1.5 percent.
In the past five years, Hong Kong has been losing market share to the mainland Chinese boomtown Shenzhen, where a 40-foot container is US$300 cheaper to process, a report by consultant McKinsey & Company said.
Hong Kong terminal operators and truckers are urging the Hong Kong and Guangdong province governments to dismantle regulatory barricades that stifle cross-border trade, inflating Hong Kong's costs and eroding its competitiveness.
"Terminal operators are crying for help. The usage of the three newly completed berths in container terminal number 9 (CT9) is only about 25 percent," Lee told reporters.
The six berths in CT9, part of the Kwai Chung basin, will be fully completed by 2005.
The Kwai Chung terminals are operated by Wharf Holdings unit Modern Terminals Ltd; Hongkong International Terminals Ltd (HIT), which is controlled by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd; COSCO-HIT, a joint venture between HIT and COSCO Pacific Ltd; CSX World Terminals Hong Kong Ltd and Asia Container Terminals Ltd.
Lee said he believed the newly added capacity in CT9 could meet demand growth until 2016.
Hong Kong sea traffic rose 11.7 percent to 10.93 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first six months.
Heavy demand pushed total throughput in Shenzhen ports up 32 percent to 6.06 million TEUs in the first half of the year.
The McKinsey report, sponsored by the Better Hong Kong Foundation, a local business group, urged the elimination of the high-cost cross-boundary licensing system, and said Hong Kong drivers should pay the same licensing fee as Guangdong drivers.
It also called for the removal of a rule that requires each truck to have a single designated driver.
The changes the group is requesting could save up to HK$950 per trip. However, the report also said there was no easy solution for reducing terminal handling fees that shipping firms charge customers using Hong Kong ports, which are US$100 higher per box in Hong Kong than Shenzhen.
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