There is the effective rub. You can drop off boxes from up the Pearl River to Shenzhen or to Hong Kong without much cost difference, so long as they travel by water. If they go by road it is a whole different ball game.

Border delays ensure the drivers from China cannot make multiple trips to the Hong Kong waterfront in a day. And the regulations which preclude mainland drivers from living in Hong Kong (onstation as it were) all ensure that a whole US$200 extra goes on the cost ledger of shipments consigned to Hong Kong from factories in China. And the road loads tend to be much higher in value. And of course it all started with the empties trade. From the beginning, Yantian and Scheckou thrived on the superior cost base and drew in the inventories of the shipowners.

The higher costs of the Special Administrative Region are also reflected in the rates paid to liability insurers by shipping and port interests. The midstream stevedores know how to claim these days and have made a name for themselves within the insurance world. Workman’s compensation claims have been rising for over a decade.

One wag says the waterfront in the pearl of the orient enjoys third world standards of safety with first world standards of liability and compensation.

And to cap it all, there has not been a direct typhoon hit in Hong Kong since the early 1960s, when cranes where rather more ground hogging than they are today.