River trade terminal

With the rapid expansion of the economy of southern China, the late 1980s and the 1990s saw a marked increase in the number of river craft carrying cargo between Hong Kong and ports in the Pearl River region. Such vessels were mostly self-propelled coasters and towed lighters 40 to 50 metres in length, carrying a mixture of break-bulk and containerised cargo.

Prior to the River Trade Terminal coming into existence, river vessels had to load and unload their cargoes at public cargo working areas or mid-stream at buoys and anchorages at various locations in Hong Kong. This often meant that such craft, originating from or bound for the Pearl River Delta, would have to enter and traverse the Hong Kong port in order to use cargo handling facilities located in the central and eastern parts of Hong Kong. The proliferation of such river craft in fairways used by large container vessels posed increasing problems in terms of port congestion and marine safety. It was particularly important that such congestion should be avoided in the busy and constrained Ma Wan Fairway, one of the main shipping routes in Hong Kong.

In 1991, as a result of a major study into Hong Kong’s port and airport development strategy, the government announced its intention to establish a river trade terminal to cope with increasing marine traffic to and from the Pearl River Delta. ^[1] The primary purpose of the River Trade Terminal was for river trade vessels from Pearl River Delta ports to unload their cargoes; to have the cargoes consolidated and then shuttled (by truck or shuttle barges) to their destinations in the central harbour such as public cargo working areas, container terminals, ocean-going vessels at buoys or anchorage; and to load cargoes from the River Trade Terminal back to Pearl River Delta ports.

The River Trade Terminal is the first terminal in Hong Kong purpose-built for river trade cargoes. The River Trade Terminal Co. Ltd. was established in 1996 and the terminal was completed in 1999. The terminal occupies a site of 65 hectares (160 acres) in Tuen Mun, with 49 berths along 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) of quay front. Shareholders of the company include Hutchison Whampoa and Sun Hung Kai Properties. Strategically located at the mouth of the Pearl River, the facility handles and consolidates container and break-bulk cargo originating from the Pearl River Delta prior to despatch to the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals and other locations in Hong Kong and vice versa. The River Trade Terminal provides round-the-clock one-stop terminal services. These include container handling and storage, approved storage of dangerous goods and dutiable goods, container freight station services, reefer container storage, container maintenance and repair, and a marine shuttle lighter service that connects to the terminals at Kwai Tsing.^[2]

Kwai Tsing Container Terminal No. 9

Container Terminal No. 9 (CT9) was Hong Kong's newest container-handling facility, located on the southeastern shoreline of Tsing Yi Island, opposite the eight pre-existing terminals at Kwai Chung. CT9 occupies an area of 68 hectares, with six berths and a design-handling capacity of more than 2.6 million TEUs a year. The berths came into operation in phases and the whole terminal was completed in 2005.^[3] The first two berths came into operation in July and October 2004. This brought the total number of berths at Kwai Chung to 24 by that year, with a total handling capacity of over 18 million TEUs per year. The expansion of the Kwai Tsing container terminals helped Hong Kong to maintain its role as one of the leading ports for southern China into the 21st century.

Like Container Terminal No. 8, CT9 was divided into southern and northern parts owned by different operating companies. CT9 (South), completed in August 2004, came under the ownership of the Modern Terminals. Thus the company owned and operated seven container berths and two feeder berths at Terminals 1, 2, 5 and 9 (South).^[4] The project on CT9 (North) was launched in 2003 and completed in 2005. It provided two berths with a total quay length of 700 metres. The alongside depth of 15.5 metres was designed to accommodate the next generation of container vessels. By 2012, the Hong Kong International Terminals Limited operated a total of nine quay cranes at CT9 (North), deploying 32 rubber-tyred gantry cranes in the CT9 terminal yard to support quayside vessel operations.^[5]

Cruise terminal

The annual berth utilisation rate of the Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui, which offers two berths accommodating vessels of up to 50,000 tonnes (49,000 long tons), rose to 76% in 2011 from 71% in 2003. Between 2001 and 2005, the Ocean Terminal was not able to meet the demand of the market. Some cruise vessels had to berth mid-stream or at container terminals. This illustrates Hong Kong’s need for additional berths to capture the growth of the regional cruise market, which eventually led to the development of the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal.

Commissioned in mid-2013, the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal is located at the site of the former Kai Tak Airport. New facilities planned on the 76,000 square metres of land earmarked at the end of the former airport runway include: (i) berthing facilities including two alongside berths of 850 metres and passenger gangways; (ii) support facilities located mainly in the cruise terminal building, such as customs, immigration and quarantine counters, and baggage handling facilities; and (iii) a commercial area inside the cruise terminal building with a maximum gross floor area of 50,000 square metres for offices and retail facilities.

The terminal is designed with the capacity to disembark a total of 8,400 passengers and 1,200 crew members. The terminal building also provides flexibility for conversion of the waiting halls into other uses , such as for exhibitions and meetings. The sustainable design combines a number of energy-saving measures and will generate power from renewable sources, as well as making use of recycled rain water for cooling. The new cruise terminal at Kai Tak is set to help Hong Kong develop into a regional transport hub for cruise liners.^[6]