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Transport

broking and chartering, marine insurance and maritime legal and arbitration services. Hong Kong is also a ship finance centre in the region. According to the Hong Kong Shipowners. Association, Hong Kong's shipowners own or manage almost 10 per cent of the world's merchant fleet in terms of deadweight tonnage.

Hong Kong has in place double taxation relief arrangements covering shipping income with 47 tax jurisdictions.

Hong Kong Maritime and Port Board

The Hong Kong Maritime and Port Board is a high-level advisory body chaired by the Secretary for Transport and Housing and comprises maritime and port industry figures. It aims to create a maritime business-friendly environment, nurture local maritime talent and promote Hong Kong's strengths in the industry, so as to entrench the territory's position as an international

maritime centre.

In November, the board organised the third Hong Kong Maritime Week to promote Hong Kong as a preferred base for operating maritime businesses, provide a networking platform and raise public awareness of the economic contributions made by the port and maritime sectors and the prospects of a maritime career. It attracted more than 14,700 participants.

The board also organises promotional visits to overseas and Mainland maritime cities to raise Hong Kong's profile as an international maritime centre and promote its quality and professional maritime services. It visited Athens in 2018.

Maritime and Aviation Training Fund

The maritime and aviation sectors receive government support in manpower development via a $100 million Maritime and Aviation Training Fund. This fund supports various scholarships and training and promotion initiatives to build up a diversified and competitive pool of professionals and technical personnel. In 2018, the fund's annual internship scheme provided about 520 maritime and aviation internship opportunities for young people. Enhancements were made to the Ship Repair Training Incentive Scheme, to attract more students to join the ship repair industry; and the Sea-going Training Incentive Scheme, to alleviate the economic burden of the seagoing cadets as they prepare for professional examinations after returning from on-board training. The new Yu Kun Training Programme received the fund's sponsorship to train Hong Kong seafaring students on board Dalian Maritime University's training ship.

Hong Kong Shipping Register

The Hong Kong Shipping Register, administered by the Marine Department, ranked fourth in the world in 2018 in terms of gross tonnage. As at end-December, the registered ships recorded 125 million gross tonnage in total. To ensure the Hong Kong-registered ships' compliance with international standards, the department conducts a quality control assessment before allowing ships to join the register and implements a Flag State Quality Control System. The Port State Control detention rate of Hong Kong-registered ships is well below the world average, putting the Hong Kong flag among the top performance flags in the white list under the Tokyo Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and Paris MoU of Port State Control. Hong Kong also holds the United States Coast Guard's Qualship 21 status.

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