HONGKONG will lose 25 per cent of its container throughput to the United States if China loses its most favoured nation (MFN) trading status, according to the Port Development Board (PDB)'s 1992 annual report. It says this would, as a result, reduce Hongkong's total outbound containers by up to six per cent. This was the findings of the PDB's port land and transport committee when considering the impact of China losing its MFN status on Hongkong trade. Regarding Hongkong's ship repair activities, the PDB report says that its ship repair facilities committee had recommended concerted action by the government and private sectors to meet demand for labour in the industry. It said that local workers should be encouraged to join the industry, suitable training should be provided and overseas labour imported to meet shortfalls. And the government had indicated that it would be flexible in giving labour import quotas to the industry, although industry officials claim there was still too much restriction. The committee recommended that the government provide larger typhoon moorings between 220 and 300 metres to secure ships under repair during the passage of typhoons. It heard that a consultancy study on improving moorings, being undertaken by the Marine Department, would examine the proposal. Regarding development of dockyard facilities in Hongkong, the committee members proposed that more breakwaters should be constructed to facilitate simplified dock mooring systems. They also said that an area of 45,000 square metres per dock should be allowed with 200 metres clearance from fairway and traffic routes. The committee members proposed that a minimum ratio of 1 to 1.2 should be allowed for in the planning process between the length of floating docks and adjacent seawall berths and that there should be two dedicated typhoon moorings per floating dock. Other proposals included provision of five hectares of back-up land per floating dry dock with access to utilities and land transportation and that part of the back-up land should be set aside for the siting of heavy duty machine shops. During 1991, the committee recommended that by the mid-1990s there should be a dockyard industry with a minimum of eight floating docks, ranging in lifting capacity from 12,000 to 40,000 tonnes, supported by alongside berths or finger piers. Hongkong has now six floating docks ranging in capacity from 11,600 to 36,000 tonnes. A seventh dockyard was also added recently by Yiu Lian dockyards.
