Page 2 EDITORIALS, FEATURES
South China Morning Post
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1973
Combo Recment if
Towards a 'Red
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Duster' of our own
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Hongkong has a maritime heritage that goes back many hundreds of years to the early China Coast junk voyagers, but it has only recently emerged as a maritime power.
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Its challenge is wholly mercantile field, with its. fleet accounting for five per cent of all the merchant ships now plying the trade routes of the world's oceans.
With this recent and rapid growth has grown up a whole range of training facilities as well as operational, administrative and financial
skills.
It is a logical outgrowth of this development that Hongkong- should consider organising its own shipping register and negotiations towards this goal have been going on with the British Department of Trade and Industry since last year.
It is no simple task, however, and the com- plicated negotiations are likely to continue for a good while yet; it has been estimated that, at the present rate of progress, the first ship to sail under the Hongkong flag will not hoist that ensign until about the end of 1975.
If the move succeeds, it is thought likely that a Hongkong Register would have some 20 million deadweight tons of shipping on its books some 250 vessels giving tangible evidence of Hongkong's emergence as a sea power of some consequence.
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The vision of a large fleet of modern Hong- kong-registered vessels trading in harbours round the globe has captured the imagination of the Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, and has been given much impetus by such shipping magnates as Mr Y.K. Pao.
It imparts a degree of nationalistic inde- pendence to have one's own fleet of ships, but this is the shadow rather than the substance of the desire for a local register.
Hongkong in no way wants to diminish the high standards that currently apply under the British Register and, in fact, in most practical instances the vessels likely to be registered here are equipped to somewhat higher standards.
It would mean, though, a substantial new career opening for Hongkong officers and
crews.
It would also mean the establishment of superior training facilities, with an internation- ally recognised school of navigation at the Poly- technic (and another in seamanship, if Mr Pao can persuade the Government to take a bigger role in helping overcome the personnel shortage),
None of the problems involved in setting up a Hongkong Shipping Register are insoluble al- though the negotiations must be painstaking.
The coming visit of an official delegation from the British Ministry for further talks with local Marine Department officials is yet an- other step forward to this desirable end.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.