Welcome to the Hong Kong Port Development Council website.

Hong Kong, known as the fragrant harbour, has been an entrepot for Southern China for many years. Endowed with a superb deep-water harbour offering a safe haven for ships in close proximity to the Pearl River Delta Region, Hong Kong has gradually developed over the years into a world-class container port.

Hong Kong has been a container port for almost four decades. In 2011, Hong Kong once again proved itself to be one of the world's most efficient container ports by handling 24.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The port of Hong Kong is a major hub port in the global supply chain with about 440 container liner services per week to about 500 destinations worldwide.

The port is the key factor in the prosperity and economic growth of Hong Kong, handling 89% of Hong Kong's total cargo throughput. The container port is vital, not only for Hong Kong, but also for Southern China - one of the fastest industrialising areas in the world, as about 70% of container traffic handled in Hong Kong is related to Southern China. More than 60% of the containerised cargoes to and from Southern China are carried by river feeders, and the rest by container trucks.

Hong Kong is one of the few major international ports in the world where port facilities are financed, owned and operated by the private sector. The role of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government is to undertake long-term strategic planning for port facilities and to provide the necessary supporting infrastructure.

In 2011, 205,700 ships, comprising both ocean-going vessels and river trade vessels for cargo and passenger traffic, visited the port of Hong Kong.