Millions of yacht owners dance in the streets upon hearing that they can now sail their boats between Hong Kong and half a dozen Pearl River Delta cities with less paperwork. Is weaving in and out of container ships the ideal way to go to Zhuhai or Dongguan? Though Zhongshan is worth a visit.
The Hong Kong government said on Saturday that it welcomed the new policy.
“Under the new policy, the exemption [from] the requirement for a guarantee will significantly reduce the financial burden” on yacht owners, it said in a statement.
It also praised the simplified registration scheme, which allows Hong Kong and Macau yachts to obtain temporary national ship registration from mainland China “without affecting their original ship registration.”
Owners of Hong Kong and Macau yachts previously had to pay hefty customs guarantees and undergo complex registration procedures before entering mainland ports.
This is all part of a push to develop the ‘yacht economy’. Presumably, a group of civil servants were locked into a room and told they would not be let out until they had identified a new economic activity for which Hong Kong could conceivably become a hub-zone. They eventually came up with yachting. Perhaps more a hobby than a sector. As with, say, stamp-collecting, the pastime surely accounts for a microscopic percentage of Hong Kong’s GDP, so it certainly has room to grow. ‘Room’, of course, is not the same as ‘potential’.
Speaking of ‘tremendous opportunities’, the CE and some old, long-forgotten faces like Jeffrey Lam and Fred Ma are on a delegation to Kazakhstan. (Did they go by yacht?)
Did anybody of our patriots know that Hong Kong receives natural gas, among others from Kazakhstan? Through the West-East Pipeline? And that the contract with the supply contract(s?) for gas via this pipeline expires in 2028?
Maybe our patriots could negotiate a good price from Kazakhstan and ask their compatriots to transport it through the West-East pipeline at a better price – and not get ripped off!
Certainly the delegation itself is a tremendous opportunity of contributing to a significant amount of GDP. Oh wait, did the spendings go to Kazakhstan more than HK?