Kwai Tsing container port needs more land not another terminal, report says

There's no need to build another cargo terminal but Kwai Tsing needs more land to ease the bottleneck facing Hong Kong's main container port, says a study commissioned by the Transport and Housing Bureau.

The report dismissed earlier proposals to build Terminal 10 in Tsing Yi or Lantau, at an estimated cost of HK$60.9 billion, saying throughput at Kwai Tsing was unlikely to grow as rapidly as projected when the proposal was made in 2005 in the study commissioned by the government.

The "Study on the Strategic Development Plan for Hong Kong Port 2030" report, released yesterday, however, said Kwai Tsing container port needed more land to receive river barges from the Pearl River Delta and to store containers.

"The administration will collaborate with the relevant stakeholders to implement feasible measures to ease the pressure … [on the port], and to enhance the operational capability and efficiency of terminals so as to maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness as a global transhipment hub," the bureau said.

Such measures should enable the Kwai Tsing container port, the world's fourth-largest by throughput, to match cargo growth until 2030. The port is forecast to grow an average 1.5 per cent a year until 2030, reaching 31.5 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) in 2030.

Kwai Tsing has suffered heavy congestion this year, forcing shipping lines to reroute and divert services to Shenzhen. The gridlock dragged down throughput by 5.8 per cent year on year between August and October, traditionally a peak season.