Hong Kong, once the world’s busiest maritime hub, is grappling with diminishing cargo volume and mounting regional rivalry, prompting political candidates to propose strategic overhauls focused on automation, professional services, and mainland integration. The container port in Kwai Tsing, which previously held the top global ranking for throughput, has seen its volumes decline significantly, falling out of the world’s top ten, highlighting the urgent need for competitive restructuring.
Several candidates vying for office outlined plans aimed at transforming Hong Kong from a pure cargo transit point back into a high-value maritime services center. Central to these proposals is enhancing the city’s strengths in specialized fields like maritime law, insurance, and arbitration.
Focusing on High-End Services and Integration
Tracy Cheung, Vice President of the Hong Kong Chinese Importers’ and Exporters’ Association and a candidate for the New People’s Party, emphasized the push to establish Hong Kong as a premium shipping services hub. She advocated for reinforcing the city’s robust legal framework, insurance capacities, and dispute resolution mechanisms for the shipping industry. Crucially, Cheung suggested that Hong Kong needs to define a clearer strategic division of labor and functional integration with ports across the Greater Bay Area (GBA) to leverage collective strengths and elevate regional competitiveness.
Concurrently, candidates from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) offered solutions focused on technological upgrades and expanded logistics services. Lo Wan-ting put forward the idea of accelerating the port’s transition to smart and automated operations, including the implementation of digital management systems. She also highlighted the need to diversify business lines to include specialized areas like cold-chain logistics and e-commerce warehousing. Like Cheung, Lo stressed the importance of enhanced collaboration with the GBA ports to secure future growth.
Another DAB district council representative, Kwok Fu-yung, focused on human capital, recommending improved training programs for maritime professionals and the development of ancillary shipping services.
Addressing Urban Mobility and Connectivity
Beyond the port itself, candidates addressed pervasive infrastructure challenges in the Tsuen Wan and Kwai Tsing districts, particularly concerning public transportation. Kwok Fu-yung proposed a radical rethink of the city’s complex rail system. She suggested modeling the future Cross-Harbour Rail Link (a critical interlining hub) after Tokyo’s Yamanote Line, designing it to seamlessly connect multiple existing lines. This design, she argued, would mitigate risks associated with the current fragmented circular network, improving operational resilience and facilitating passenger transfer during disruptions.
Lo Wan-ting focused on bus services, identifying overlapping routes as a major source of inefficiency. She called for the consolidation of resources to optimize service delivery, while also seeking solutions for pervasive issues such as chronic driver shortages and delayed schedules.
Tracy Cheung proposed leveraging technology to alleviate traffic congestion, advocating for the accelerated completion of existing road improvement projects and the introduction of AI-powered traffic management systems. These systems would analyze real-time vehicle flow data to dynamically manage and ease bottlenecks across key thoroughfares.
While several key figures from the Federation of Trade Unions and the Business and Professionals Alliance declined to comment, citing election commitments, the detailed proposals from Cheung, Lo, and Kwok underscore a growing consensus: Hong Kong’s maritime future relies less on raw cargo volume and more on establishing world-class technological, legal, and logistical foundations, tightly integrated with its booming regional neighbors. The successful implementation of these strategic shifts will determine the city’s ability to reclaim its standing on the global shipping stage.
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