Hong Kong set to fall one spot to 10th place in rankings of world’s busiest container ports, logistics minister says
- Logistics chief Lam Sai-hung says it is crucial for city to consolidate and develop advantages of its port rather than to focus on declining trend
- Economist Simon Lee says main cause of drop is competition from ports in mainland China in areas of cost and convenience
Hong Kong’s logistics chief has predicted the city will drop one spot to 10th in the rankings of the world’s busiest ports in terms of container throughput, with economists attributing the decline to competition from mainland China.
The city has slipped in the rankings in recent years, falling gradually from No 3 in the world in 2008 to ninth between 2020 and 2022, according to the latest available data from the Marine Department.
Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung, writing on his blog on Saturday, noted that Hong Kong’s container throughput in 2023 was 14.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
That was lower than the 16.68 million TEUs the city handled in 2022, and the 14.45 million TEUs that year at Dutch port Rotterdam, which ranked No 10, according to department data. TEU refers to the size of a standard shipping container, which is 20 feet (six metres) in length.
Using the calculation method of leading shipping publication Lloyd’s List, Lam estimated the city’s container throughput ranking slipped to No 10 in 2023, one place lower than in 2022.