The global economy faces daunting challenges in light of ongoing geopolitical tension, the lingering pandemic, trade disputes, high inf lation, and tightening monetary policies, says Paul Chan, Financial Secretary of Hong Kong.This places governments under extreme pressure to manage their lagging economies and maintain any form of growth.“Economies are being severely tested,” he said during his keynote address at the Asian Logistics Maritime and Aviation Conference. “Hong Kong is no different, and has also been hit hard by these global challenges and uncertainties. Our growth has slowed down.”He says now, more than ever, it is important to look at the fundamentals of one’s trade partners and, in the case of Hong Kong, these remain strong.“Hong Kong is a testament to resilience,” says Chan. “Over the past 25 years, it has managed to overcome several challenges, including the Asian financial crisis in 1998, the SARS epidemic, the global financial challenge, and the Covid-19 pandemic.”According to Chan, there remains a clear direction in the government’s plans to build the city and region as an international shipping centre and aviation hub. “It continues to play an extremely important integration role in the country, driving economic development. Hong Kong embraces opportunities in logistics and sees itself playing a leading role as a logistics hub.”Chan said there was a strategic direction in this regard and a major effort was being taken to not only create sustainable supply chains but boost connectivity, innovation and collaboration.Ensuring competitiveness“Hong Kong fundamentally believes in these three aspects. We also believe in competitiveness and are working hard to ensure our logistics sector is exactly that.”Ongoing investment into the development and maintenance of its world-class infrastructure ensured that it was not only connected but also efficient. “Before the pandemic, our aviation network was tied to more than 200 destinations worldwide. Hong Kong is geographically very well situated and the Hong Kong International Airport has been the world’s busiest cargo airport for 11 years running, including the challenging year of 2021.”While traffic through the airport has been severely impacted by the Covid pandemic, the city has continued to invest in its facilities to ensure it does not lose its status as an aviation hub to regional rivals.In July this year, a third runway was opened at the airport as part of an $18-billion project that will increase the airport footprint by at least 50%. Construction of an entertainment, retail and commercial complex is continuing. The airport is also expanding its terminals, building a new concourse and baggage handling system.According to Chan, these infrastructure investments are for the long term, while moves are being made in the short term to return traffic to the city.Airport upgrades“Upgrades to the airport are scheduled for completion by 2024. It will significantly enlarge our passenger and cargo handling capacity. This, in turn, will enhance our competitiveness and only further boost our status as an international aviation hub. The airport authority is also expanding the intermodal transport networks at the airport to further enhance connectivity between the airport and the city and beyond.”It was not just the air sector that was getting attention, said Chan. “Sea connectivity is just as important to Hong Kong, which has consistently been one of the top 10 container ports in the world. We are a major regional transhipment hub and handled nearly 80 million 20-foot containers last year”He said with 270 weekly sailings to more than 600 destinations, the city was, however, not resting on its laurels, but continuing to enhance its intermodal shipping connectivity. “As a city, we have a sea and air advantage. It delivers a competitive advantage to the city.”According to Chan, concessions for maritime enterprises have been rolled out to incentivise and boost the sector.“This is an opportunity for overseas companies who can now capitalise on Hong Kong’s geographical position and its connectivity with mainland China. This allows them to tap into the enormous business opportunities offered by our economy and, in particular, the potential business opportunities with China.“We have a huge consumer market with many investment opportunities to tap into. Furthermore, we make it easy to do business here. It is a global city with a long-standing belief in the free market and multilateralism. That means we go out of our way to reduce trade barriers.”
