Policy Address

Establish the Hong Kong Maritime and Port Development Board

49. The existing Hong Kong Maritime and Port Board will be reconstituted into the "Hong Kong Maritime and Port Development Board", a high-level advisory body to assist the Government in formulating policies and long-term development strategies. To be chaired by a non-official member, with other members largely from the maritime sector, the new body will be underpinned by dedicated staff to undertake research and publicity work. Additional funding will be provided to enhance its research capabilities, strengthen its Mainland and overseas promotional work and step up manpower training, supporting the Government in policy implementation more effectively and promoting the sustainable development of Hong Kong's maritime industry.

Promote Development of High Value-added Maritime Services

50. We will strive to promote the development of high value-added maritime and professional services. Indeed, the Government has been encouraging more shipping commercial principals and maritime service enterprises to establish presence in Hong Kong by providing tax exemptions for ship leasing business and offering half-rate tax concessions for marine insurance, ship management, ship agency and ship broking. We will continue to boost Hong Kong's maritime strengths. Relevant measures include:

  1. enhancing and promoting tax concessions – To strengthen the local maritime ecosystem, we will step up promotion of existing tax concessionary measures for maritime services and enhance the preferential tax regime (including introducing new tax deduction arrangements for ship lessors pursuant to international tax rules);

  2. attracting maritime service enterprises to establish presence in Hong Kong – We will encourage leading or high-potential marine insurance business operators to establish presence in our city to broaden the range of marine insurance products; and

  3. developing maritime services talents – We will strengthen collaboration with international marine insurance organisations to promote the training of marine insurance talents, and expand the scope of the Maritime and Aviation Training Fund to cover more green energy courses, marine insurance examinations, and others.