ENG-2015 — Page 274

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Transport

Government Dockyard

The Government Dockyard, managed by the Government Fleet Division, designs, procures and maintains all government vessels. It occupies a site of 9.8 hectares on Stonecutters Island and has a sheltered water basin of 8.3 hectares as one of the Marine Department's operational bases. For repair and maintenance of vessels, the dockyard has four movable canopies, 10 covered docking and repair sheds and 30 open-yard docking cradle spaces, supported by a ship-lift system and three ship-hoists capable of dry-docking vessels of up to 750 tonnes.

In 2015, 43 new craft, costing $14.7 million, were built for the government and eight new craft building contracts, worth $9.3 million, were awarded to shipbuilders in Hong Kong. The total expenditure in maintaining the Government Dockyard systems and government fleet was close to $484 million.

Air Transport

Hong Kong is a major international and regional aviation centre. At the year end, there were more than 100 airlines providing over 1,100 flights daily between Hong Kong and about 190 destinations worldwide.

Hong Kong International Airport

In 2015, 68.5 million passengers passed through the airport, a rise of 8.1 per cent over 2014. The airport handled 4.38 million tonnes of cargo, a rise of 0.1 per cent over 2014, and recorded 406,020 incoming and outgoing flights, a rise of 3.8 per cent over 2014.

The airport continues to provide extensive land and sea connections to the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. In 2015, there were about 94 daily ferry trips between SkyPier and Guangzhou's Nansha and Lianhuashan, Shenzhen's Shekou and Fuyong, Dongguan's Humen, Zhongshan, Zhuhai's Jiuzhou and Macao's Maritime Ferry Terminal and Taipa. With 550 daily scheduled coach trips, passengers enjoy convenient services between the airport and about 110 PRD cities and towns. The number of cross-boundary limousines serving Mainland cities and towns daily reached around 280 in 2015.

Airport Services

Plans to increase aircraft parking stands in the medium term are under way. The 28 stands provided in the west apron expansion projects became fully operational in 2015. On 28 December 2015, the Midfield Concourse and its ancillary facilities, which include 20 aircraft parking stands and an Automated People Mover link to Terminal 1, began operation. Upon full operation of the Midfield Concourse, the airport will be able to serve an additional 10 million. passengers a year.

Future Development

To maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness as a global and regional aviation hub, the government affirmed the need for the Three-runway System (3RS) project in March 2015. The Airport Authority is taking forward the detailed design of the project, as well as the relevant statutory processes. It has also formulated a financial arrangement plan for funding the project. On the environmental front, the AAHK has embarked on the implementation of various

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