“Air cargo is certainly and indisputably one of the world’s most important industries,” he said. “It drives economies, it facilitates trade and it creates new economicopportunities.”
As such, he foresaw a promising future for air cargo, with more and more countries using minimum inventory and zero stock methods, and the globalisation of trade requiring air cargo to supply parts and carry fi nished productsto market.
Moreover, much of the forecast six per cent annual growth in air cargo would come from China, Hui noted, where cargo tonnage had more than tripled over the last 10 years. He predicted that this would continue to grow, reaching 30 million tonnes by 2020 – ten times the current throughputof Hong Kong airport.
The Chinese government was assisting this, liberalising air policies and investing heavily in airport infrastructure, with some RMB40 billion (US$5.3 billion) alone being invested in Shanghai, Beijing andGuangzhou.
Turning to Hong Kong’s role, Hui pointed out that in the past few years it had greatly expanded its multimodal links with the Pearl River Delta, and was now connected to over 70 citiesin mainland China.
Trucking links now reached as far as the Yangtze River, and had become the equivalent of the road feeder networks in the US and Europe. Meanwhile, Hong Kong airport’s Marine Terminal had barge links with over 40 points in the Pearl River Delta. “All of these systems strengthen our role as an important air cargo centre in theregion,” Hui told delegates.
Such cross-border feeder services had been assisted by the easing of Customs restrictions between Hong Kong and the rest of China, and the opening in July of the Hong Kong Western Corridor, a fourth border crossing, while Hui also noted plans for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai bridge and the Guangzhou to Hong Kong express rail link, as well as a possible direct link between Hong Kongand Shenzhen airports.
“So you can really see that the government is making a lot of efforts to connect Hong Kong with the Pearl River Delta,” Hui said. “More integration, means more opportunities for air cargo.”
In the airport itself, Hui added, there had also been signifi cant investment in cargo, with 10 new freighter parking positions recently inaugurated, bringing the total to 34, and a tender issued for a third cargoterminal.
“It is also important to have more events like this one, where we can share ideas, make new business contacts, and meet new friends,” he concluded.