5
repair costs in the region were reasonable.
Fourthly, there was easy access
to flags of convenience with their low registration fees and tax advantages.
at the same time there was an urgent demand for ships to move the
growing exports and imports of the region. heanwhile, the economic prosperity
of the region created capital, sc that when the incurance of old secondhand
ships became prohibitively expensive in the mid-1960s, as underwriters
suffered heavy losses on them, shipowners had access to the funds necessary to
buy modern vessels.
This development coincided with the expansion of Japan's highly
efficient shipbuilding industry. Shipowners of the region were only too ready
to take full advantage of the shikumisen deals, too well known to all of
you to need describing here.
SEIPOWNING IN HONG KONG
You would expect me to say that Hong Kong has been outstanding in
So much so that taking full advantage of these developments; and I shall! your Chairman, who started his shipowning career in the mid-1950s with a Becondhand freighter of 7 800 tons now controls the largest commercial fleet
in the world adding up to 20 million tons. Shipowners with Long Kong connections now own or control as much tonnage as the United Kingdom, about
45 million tons dead weight.
The reasons for Hong Kong's success lie in a combination of
most of the factors leading to the success of the region as a whole both
in economic growth and in the developwent of shipping.
The determination
of the people of Hong Kong to survive against all odds was the foundation of the rapid economic growth achieved since the early 1950s. The Government assisted by adopting policies which we believed were suited to dong Kong's
/circumstances.