The SAR is aiming to establish five green shipping and energy corridors by 2030 under the five-year plan, its first, and the Policy Address unveiled last week.
Chan said the government was expected to sign a cooperation agreement with the chosen mainland city to secure a stable supply of green energy for bunkering, adding that Hong Kong had an edge in creating a bunkering supply chain and a trading platform for green energy.
Signing an agreement with a mainland city can, she stressed, ensure a stable supply of marine fuel that will help make overall prices more competitive in the long term.
“If our demand can reach a certain scale and we can also ensure that some international shipping companies will switch from using traditional fuels to emerging green fuels when they come to Hong Kong annually, then, in fact, both the demand volume and timing would be more favourable for suppliers or producers,” Chan said in an RTHK programme.
“I believe this would make the overall supply price more market-oriented and competitive,” she said.
More details about the first corridor could, Chan said, be expected during Hong Kong Maritime Week, which would also see the announcement of the second batch of partner ports under the “Green Shipping Corridor” initiative.
She said the second list of partner ports would focus on attracting more routes from Southeast Asia, South America and Europe to call at Hong Kong.
The first batch of partner ports was announced in November, which included Chile’s San Antonio port, as well as Dalian and Guangxi ports on the mainland.
Chan also said the government would be pushing to forge a “brother port” relationship with Shanghai in 2026, as set out in the Policy Address supplement released last week.
Both Hong Kong and Shanghai are, she pointed out, international shipping hubs and are often affected by extreme weather, which impacts port operations, and both sides are exploring whether they can complement each other – for instance, by establishing regular barge services between the two ports and using smart systems to monitor weather conditions.
