2
in width and encompasses an area of 23 square miles. Within its confines
are 74 mooring buoys for vessels of over 450 feet in length and wharves
which will accommodate ships with draughts up to 40 feet and lengths of as
much as 1,000 feet.
If you look down upon the harbour from the hills which range above
it to the north and south, you will see the water patterned unceasingly by
the wakes of hundreds of small craft which ply day and night within its
boundaries. The scale of this traffic can be judged from the fact that
in 1974 over 200 million passengers used our internal ferries and nearly
41⁄2 million made the journey to or from Macau.
At any time, there are estimated to be about 100 ocean-going ships
and 5,000 local craft working or underway within the harbour; and our fleet
of locally based small ships, fishing boats, cargo vessels, work boats and
pleasure craft totals more than 15,000.
In terms of tonnage of shipping using its facilities, the amount
of cargo handled and the number of passengers carried within it, Hong Kong
is believed to be the seventh largest port in the world.
SHIPPING FACILITIES
As you would expect, most of our international passenger traffic,
except on the route to Macau, is now carried by air. But the same does not
apply to the movement of goods.
Last year,
of a total trade of over 18
million metric tons, more than 93% was moved by sea; indeed, almost 99% by volume of our export trade, on which our survival and prosperity depend,
was transported by sea.
We do not have a separate Hong Kong Shipping Register, although I
an aware that many of you believe that such a development would be justified
by the importance of Hong Kong as a shipping centre and advantageous to her
interests. However that may be, an immense fleet, probably between 25 and
/30 million