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Empties put pressure on HK container parks
2009/4/21
The New Territories'' infamous container parks in Hong Kong are spilling over into more rural land and green-belt areas to house the mountains of boxes left empty by the slump in global exports.
Unauthorised container depots have mushroomed in the past two months as operators wait for the government to provide a site expected to become available in August, the South China Morning Post reported.
A green-belt area of about 2 hectares in Hong Kong''s Lau Fau Shan area was recently found covered by asphalt and loaded with thousands of unused shipping containers, and it is not the only one.
The Planning Department said it had issued a written warning to the occupier against illegal conversion.
But Hong Kong Container Depot and Repairer Association chairman Mark Chan Wai-chung said the operators were forced to use such land because the government had failed to find them a site after two months'' of negotiations.
A government spokesman said two plots in the Tuen Munn district of Hong Kong could be used for temporary storage of the containers.
However, the site was unlikely to be put into use until administrative and public tendering procedures were cleared, and that might take four months.
Although mainland exports continued to drop for the fifth month in March, the year-on-year decline has narrowed and there have been forecasts that global trade may improve in the coming months.
Latest Port Development Council figures showed a rebound in movements of loaded containers in March, while arrivals of empty containers continued to drop, from 138,000 TEUs in January to 56,000 TEUs last month.
The government spokesman said the administration was sympathetic to the difficulties faced by the industry. He said the government had conducted an extensive site search in an effort to meet the industry''s urgent needs.
The Development Bureau suggested a site in Sunny Bay, Lantau, but the industry rejected it as the site could only be reached by barges, which would mean much higher transport costs.
Chan said the depot operator who had created the Lau Fau Shan site had applied to the Town Planning Board to change the land use after receiving a warning. It takes six weeks to process applications.
However, the operator is likely to face prosecution for the unauthorised conversion.
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2009/4/22