Hong Kong: Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive-elect of the special administrative region of Hong Kong, sees greater potential for the city as a ship services centre, citing London as a template to follow.
"London, instead of shipping freight in and out of ports, offers services, including ship sales and rent, registrations, financing, management and insurance," the 58-year-old told reporters recently. Leung studied valuation and estate management at Bristol Polytechnic (now the University of West England) in the 1970s.
These services offer greater economic value, he said. "If Hong Kong simply tries to double cargo throughput, it will expand its scale, but it will not take it to a higher level. We can do better than just expanding scale."
China is now a major shipbuilding nation and it handles huge volumes of cargo so it needs a shipping centrre, and Hong Kong meets all the conditions, said Leung, who will start his five-year term on July 1. [25/06/12]
