简体中文
Dockworkers' strike could negatively affect Hong Kong's reputation as an international shipping center, despite that the strike would not deal a heavy blow to the concerned conglomerate itself, an analyst said Tuesday.
Responding to a phone interview on the impact of dockers’ 34-day strike, Ho Leongleong, a renowned current affairs commentator, said that the longer the strike continues, the higher the impact on shipping.
Many ships have already been diverted cargo to Yantian Port in the west of Shenzhen, which is also partly controlled by striking dockers’ parent company Hutchison Port Holdings Trust (HPHT). “It is possible that these shipping lines would not return to Hong Kong if the strike drags on with no end in sight, Ho said.
He said the strike, however, does not deal a heavy blow to the company itself, as the 450 striking workers accounts for only a small number of the total workforce and merely15 percent of overall operating business.
This corroborates with the company’s own statement, which estimated that a one-month strike could hurt HPHT’s 2013 revenue by 0.7%. Canning Fok, the company’s chairman, said in Singapore on Monday that the pork strike “has little impact on HPH Trust since there are many other people in Hong Kong willing to take the place of striking dockworkers.
Meanwhile, local media said Hongkong International Terminal (HIT), the port operator of striking workers, has recently increased its interest in a dock at Yantian to 65 percent from 41.67 percent, amid its efforts to expand business in Shenzhen to benefit further from the mainland’s booming economy and increased international trade.
Hong Kong is the world’s third largest port, but it is facing increasing competition from the mainland’s coastal cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen. Last year, container traffic through Hong Kong fell 5.2%, while ports in Shenzhen saw a marginal rise.
As the mainland moves towards direct exporting and importing, Hong Kong has been falling behind in transshipments. “Hong Kong must be extra-competitive to induce people to ship here, a former executive of HIT said in a recent interview.
A maritime industrial report said that Hong Kong will almost certainly fall to the fourth place in the busiest container port list behind Shenzhen by the end of this year. “Once shipping lines have moved and new cargo flows have been established, it won’t be easy to lure the volumes, the report said.
Taiwan’s Evergreen Line, which operates the world’s fifth-biggest container shipping lines by fleet size, said it is considering shifting some of its container vessels to other ports as a contingency plan in response to the labor disputes, according to a report by Wall Street Journal.
The report also quoted an executive at a major Japanese shipping line as saying that some of its vessels “may even skip calling at the Hong Kong port entirely and be rerouted to other ports if the situation persists."
