High-speed venture sails to victory
A high-speed passenger and car ferry venture between Hong Kong and Australia that looks set to take on the world earned the family firm, AFAI Ships, this year's Business Promotion Award.
The firm was founded by Antony Szeto's father, the late Fai Szeto, a merchant politician and People's Congress of China member.
When Australian-born Antony returned to Hong Kong five years ago to take over the ship repairing business, he re-structured the operation to focus on opening the most advanced shipyard in the mainland.
A new yard was started from scratch at Panyu, specifically for the task of meeting exacting standards required to build the most modern vessels.
The company employed mainland graduates fresh from college and trained them to work to world-class standards. It did this rather than hiring from other shipyards, where the required attention to quality was not up to its own exacting standards.
At the time, Incat Tasmania was also searching worldwide for shipyards capable of building top-quality designs.
On a visit to Panyu, Incat chairman Robert Clifford decided on AFAI as a partner.
The result of that Hong Kong-Australia partnership is a new generation of the world's fastest car and passenger ferries, the K50.
Earlier this year, the first multi-hulled, aluminium 450-seater K50 - the first high-speed car and passenger ferry ever built in the mainland - was delivered to a customer in Europe.
'Assembly of the second K50 - due for delivery to Latin America early next year - is well underway and we eventually aim to produce four vessels a year,' Mr Szeto said.
AFAI and Incat Tasmania are so confident about the K50's design and speed (unloaded, it slices through the water at 53 knots, or just over 98 km per hour) that the venture sees it gaining worldwide popularity in the high-speed ferry market.
