If competition in the logistics business is ever intensifying, you would not know it from the share price record of Orient Overseas (International) Ltd (OOIL) since the beginning of last year. Look at the first chart. That share price has risen more than fivefold in the space of just 12 months.

I was always under the impression that intensifying competition, in the logistics business, just as much as in any other, had the effect of bringing prices down, thus restraining profitability and limiting the opportunity for windfall gains on the stock market. Apparently I had something wrong in my thinking.

I certainly agree with Mr Tung, however, that we have prima facie evidence of high operating costs, high for shippers, that is. Certain other people will obviously think this just fine. Shipowners see no erosion of their advantages here and I am sure that Mr Tung's brother, who now runs OOIL, will redouble his efforts to keep things that way.

Now was it a blind trust into which Mr Tung's shares of OOIL went, one in which an independent investment manager made his choices without further reference to Mr Tung? This is the way things should be done when corporate tycoons take high public office and, if it were done, I could imagine the investment adviser thinking a little diversification is in order.

Oh, what remorse he would now feel if he had followed his instincts. I suspect, however, that he did not. The latest declarations to the stock exchange still show at least 17.19 per cent of the share capital held under Mr Tung's name.

Turn to OOIL's latest results announcements and the good fortune is attributed to the growth of container volumes and a strong recovery in the general level of freight rates, in turn because the growth of new tonnage has not kept pace with growth in demand.

Could be, could be, but, if you look at the second chart, you can see that the joy of this trend has been somewhat one-sided. Ocean liner freight rates to west coast ports in the United States have more than doubled over the past six years, rising by more than a third last year alone. For ships crossing the Atlantic to east coast ports they have remained flat.

I shall grant you that I do not know all the ins and outs of how these rates are set. What a blessing for the family shipping firm, however, that its business is predominantly cross-Pacific rather than cross-Atlantic.

But could we have some statements of regret from you, Mr Tung, that this divergence of freight rates has resulted from the cross-Pacific rates rising while Atlantic rates have not?

After all, freight rates represent a significant factor in Hong Kong's logistics costs and it can certainly do our competitive position no good to see our shipping costs rising while elsewhere in the world they are not. Surely your policy address could have featured a few words of lament about this unfortunate trend.

What you actually said in that policy address is that 'globalisation has aggravated poverty generally in many places around and we are no exception'. Really? I can think of one exception among us, someone to whom globalisation has certainly not brought aggravated poverty, quite the reverse in fact. Hmmm ... now whom might that be?