Hong Kong Remains World's Busiest Container PortHong Kong has maintained its position as the world's busiest container port in 2000 with the total container throughput reaching 18.1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), Secretary for Economic Services Sandra Lee said at the Terminal Operations Conference (TOC) Asia 2001 Tuesday.Lee said the performance represented a growth of 11.7 percent in container throughput over 1999, making Hong Kong the world's busiest container port once again. TOC Asia 2001 has moved to Hong Kong after two years in the Middle East because the organizer of the conference thinks that Hong Kong, being the busiest container port in the world, is a fitting location for this year's high level debate on the forces shaping global terminal operations in the 21st century. Lee said in order for the economic infrastructure and port facilities in Hong Kong to meet the needs of the industry, the Hong Kong Port and Maritime Board (PMB) carried out major reviews of the Port Cargo Forecasts (PCF) once every two to three years to ensure that these forecasts, which covered a span of 20 years ahead, were as accurate and up-to-date as possible. "We have just completed an update of the Port Cargo Forecasts. Findings of the PCF reveal that the total throughput for Hong Kong over the last five years has sustained an annual growth of 6.6 percent," Lee said. "The cargo demand for the Hong Kong container port in the next 15 years will grow at an annual rate of 5 percent, which is faster than the forecast of 4.6 percent in our previous study in 1997," she said. "The cargo pie for the Pearl River Delta is expected to continue to grow at a high rate fuelled by an expected general increase in world trade and increase in foreign direct investment through China's accession to the WTO, leading to increased imports to and exports from China, especially for the Guangdong province," the official said. Lee noted that although the development and expansion of the Northern Mainland ports and increasing competition from the Shenzhen ports would divert some of the cargoes that might otherwise flow through the port of Hong Kong, the PCF study concluded that cargo from Southern China would grow fast enough to support the planned expansion of ports in the region, including Hong Kong and Shenzhen. "The throughput of Hong Kong port is expected to grow from the base figure of 18 million TEUs to 30 million TEUs in 2010 and 40 million TEUs in 2020," Lee said. To cope with the expected growth in demand in the coming decade, Hong Kong is now building a new Container Terminal 9 (CT9). This terminal, covering a total area of 150 hectares, will add six berths or almost 2000 meters of quay length to the existing 18- berth Kwai Chung port. The six-berth Container Terminal 9, with additional handling capacity of at least 2.6 million TEUs a year, will come into operation in 2002 and be fully operational in 2004. With the theme of "Managing Growth with Intelligence: the Quest for Profitable Capacity," the three-day TOC Asia 2001, organized by the Informa Group and supported by the PMB, will focus on the forces shaping global terminal operations in the 21st century, and the new skills and equipment required for the terminal industry in order to plan ahead for future port and terminal development projects. |
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