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Hong Kong has been hit by an accelerating decline in seaborne cargo volumes, because it loses out to rivals in mainland China and south-east Asia.
Container throughput in Hong Kong fell 14 per cent final 12 months to 14.3mn twenty-foot equal models (TEUs), in line with figures from maritime consultancy Drewry.
This was the largest share drop among the many world’s greatest ports final 12 months. Hong Kong is now the Tenth-largest port on the planet by quantity, Drewry figures present, carefully adopted by Malaysia’s Port Klang, the place volumes rose 6.4 per cent final 12 months.
Hong Kong’s deepwater port on the coronary heart of the Pearl River Delta has lengthy made it a fascinating buying and selling gateway to the better China area. As soon as the world’s busiest port, in line with Hong Kong authorities information, volumes have fallen as town’s producers shift to mainland China and competitors from different Chinese language ports rise, analysts mentioned.
Shippers have come to treat amenities in mainland China as a extra enticing choice than Hong Kong, to which items manufactured within the delta area should be trans-shipped by barge, small container ship or highway.
“It’s all the time inevitable that Hong Kong would contract as a port,” mentioned Tim Huxley, chair of Hong Kong-based delivery funding firm Mandarin Delivery.
“Manufacturing moved elsewhere. While [Hong Kong’s port] remains to be an enormous employer, it’s not the gateway to southern China as there are different ports within the Larger Bay Space which service the producers there,” mentioned Huxley, referring to the world across the Pearl River Delta.
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s settlement this 12 months to shift cargo to Shenzhen’s Yantian port as a substitute of Hong Kong underlines the development, in line with analysts. “The ports of Shenzhen and Guangzhou have invested in deepwater terminal amenities which facilitated a rise in mainline calls, in different phrases bypassing Hong Kong,” mentioned Eleanor Hadland, Drewry’s senior analyst of ports and terminals.
Final 12 months’s drop in Hong Kong throughput was resulting from elements together with “improved capability and functionality of terminals in Guangzhou and Shenzhen”, which permit carriers to bypass the territory, Hadland added.
There was a “structural change” in shippers’ preferences to “direct cargo in China as a substitute of vessel-to-vessel transshipment” by way of Hong Kong, the territory’s main port operator Hutchison Ports Holdings Belief mentioned in its earnings report in February.
“A few of the rivals in [the] Larger Bay Space proceed to obtain authorities incentives, therefore in a position to provide enticing cheaper price choice[s] to delivery strains,” the corporate added.
Of the six different Chinese language ports in Drewry’s high 10, 5 reported an increase in container throughput final 12 months. Shenzhen remained flat with a slight 0.5 per cent drop to an annual 29.9mn TEUs.
Hong Kong’s port additionally faces rising competitors from counterparts in south-east Asia, Hadland added, as producers improve manufacturing outdoors of China.
Singapore, the world’s second-busiest port after Shanghai, has benefited “as a result of south-east Asia, and Vietnam specifically, has picked up a lot of the ‘China-plus-one’ story”, mentioned Anoop Singh, international head of delivery analysis at Oil Brokerage.
China nonetheless stays by far the “stronger producer throughout all industries”, and its manufacturing and transport infrastructure is unmatched in contrast with these in most south-east Asian nations, mentioned Andrea Currone, vice-president of Asia operations at Berlin-based freight forwarder Forto.
Further reporting by Robert Wright in London
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