17
PORT DEVELO
HONG KONG's port throughput continued to record a strong growth rate. In 1993, the number of containers handled increased by 15 per cent to total 9.2 million TEUS (20-foot equivalent units). This followed increases of 29 per cent in 1992 and 21 per cent in 1991. The massive increases ensured that Hong Kong retained its position as the world's busiest container port.
The port handles more containers a year than does the whole of Britain. Only the United States and Japan have a bigger container throughput than Hong Kong.
To meet rising demand, Hong Kong must, between now and the year 2011, increase its handling capacity by one million TEUs each year. That is the equivalent of building, every year, a port the size of Oakland, California, or Felixstowe, Britain's busiest container port.
The territory will build a completely new port on the northeast of Lantau Island to handle this huge rise in throughput. This will involve one of the world's biggest civil engineering projects.
A total of 17 new container berths are planned for Lantau, but it is envisaged that as many as 24 berths could be in operation by 2011. Hong Kong's present container port at Kwai Chung has 15 berths, with another seven to be built by 1995.
Aside from container berths, the new port at Lantau will need back-up and cargo working areas, ship-repair facilities, a river trade terminal to handle vessels from China and an extensive road network, including an expressway. New channels must be dredged to provide marine access and breakwaters constructed to shelter working container vessels from wave action. Eventually a link, by tunnel or bridge, will connect Lantau directly with Hong Kong Island.
Planning is also underway for a dedicated rail link that will connect the new port and the present facilities at Kwai Chung with China's upgraded-rail network. This will enable containers to be sent by rail from most of mainland China.
For, like Kwai Chung, the new port will not just serve Hong Kong. The territory owes its very existence to its position as an entrepôt for China. With the modernisation of China's economy and its opening up to world markets, that entrepôt trade has assumed a renewed importance.
The port at Lantau will begin to operate in 1997, when the Lantau Fixed Crossing- which includes one of the world's longest suspension bridges comes into operation. The bridge will provide transport access to both the new port, and the new airport at Chek Lap Kok.
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