For the mainland, apart from the traditional professional service sectors like accounting and legal arbitration, new professional sectors from Hong Kong are being sought.

“The middle class on the mainland has strong demand for new professional services, covering the tertiary education, vocational training and medical fields, such as consultation, prescription and medical equipment. Cultural services like operas and musical concerts form another new professional services segment,” Choi tells China Daily.

“There will be huge market potential for Hong Kong service providers if the central government allows our service providers to start operating in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The point is that Hong Kong-based service providers should seize these opportunities as the mainland gradually opens up its market.”

Updating maritime services

What is important for Hong Kong is the creation of a high value-added maritime services hub comprising ship management, ship broking, ship finance, maritime insurance, and law.

“Take London, for instance — its container port no longer relies on strong container throughput. It now excels in various high-end professional maritime services. Hong Kong has to cultivate talents in maritime law, ship leasing and finance, insurance, transaction brokerage, and maritime legal case arbitration,” Choi suggests.

“In the past, the Greater Bay Area’s re-exports trade was mainly conducted through Hong Kong. The situation has now changed, with shipments of mainland exports and overseas imports skipping Hong Kong port as the mainland does more direct trade with overseas countries, creating an immediate (negative) effect on Hong Kong.”

Major container ports in the 11-city cluster Greater Bay Area include Yantian, Nansha, Shekou, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Amid deeper integration, various ports in the region should strengthen digitalization, automation, and standardization of customs clearance procedures. While Hong Kong port has lower container throughput, it can focus on high value-added maritime services.

Choi says the authorities should have high-level design planning on the position of each port in the Greater Bay Area to avert vicious competition by leveraging the strengths of each port. The port authorities should formulate a holistic strategy for the ports concerning integration, digitization, and automation.

Once the world’s busiest container port during much of the 1980s and 1990s, a position it last held in 2005, Hong Kong dropped out of global 10 busiest ports rankings for the first time last year.

The city’s port now ranks 11th, according to shipping industry data provider Alphaliner. The freight volume handled plummeted 14.1 percent year-on-year to 14.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units due to stiff competition from mainland ports.

Leung Chun-ying, former Hong Kong chief executive and a vice-chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, has proposed that Hong Kong concentrate on developing a full-fledged high value-added maritime services hub like London to make up for the economic decline.

Contact the writer at oswald@chinadailyhk.com