A RESEARCH REPORT from CLSA Emerging Markets is likely to set the cat among the pigeons again in the increasingly vexed dispute about the high fees that our container port charges its users.
The 56-page report, written by former legislator Christine Loh Kung-wai of the non-profit think tank Civic Exchange, points out that Hong Kong's terminal handling charges (THCs) are the highest in the world and raises the question of whether the THCs levied by Shenzhen ports are in turn maintained at very high levels in order to support the fee structure in Hong Kong.
'There is evidence that the terminal operators, who have by and large the same interests as those running Hong Kong terminals, keep prices across the border artificially high,' she wrote. 'By keeping Shenzhen prices high, they are in fact propping up their Hong Kong profit, which remains considerable. In other words, they are maximising earnings at both ends.'
The publication of this report coincides with pleas from Liberal Party legislator Kenneth Ting Woo-shou that the government intervene to monitor charges and help set reasonable pricing levels. He argues that port operators and shipping lines turn a 40 per cent net profit margin on the annual HK$24 billion in fees that shippers pay.
'Terminal handling charges are really high and unreasonable, even the Consumer Council says so,' he told a Legco meeting last week. 'Shipping lines always rip off shippers, who have no bargaining power.'
All this follows an earlier acrimonious debate between Hopewell Holdings chairman Sir Gordon Wu Ying-sheung and Hutchison Whampoa managing director Canning Fok Kin-ning on the proposed building of a bridge to Hong Kong across the Pearl River estuary. Sir Gordon wants a new port at the end of the bridge to compete with the Kwai Chung container port, which is dominated by Hutchison.