The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period will be a crucial stage for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s development as an international shipping center. The central government’s support for Hong Kong in consolidating and enhancing its status as an international financial, shipping, and trade center is not only a recognition of the city’s traditional strengths. It is also a call for the SAR to play a more strategic role in China’s high-standard opening-up and participation in global governance.

Hong Kong should therefore set a more ambitious goal: not only to remain an international shipping center, but to become a global maritime capital. This means a city that is not defined merely by port throughput or cargo volume, but by its ability to bring together capital, law, insurance, arbitration, mediation, technology, green standards, and international rules.

For a long time, international shipping centers were judged mainly by port throughput, vessel calls and cargo volume. That era is changing. In today’s global maritime economy, the real competition is increasingly about high-end services and institutional capacity: finance, insurance, arbitration, mediation, risk management, green standards, digital platforms and the ability to shape international rules.

Hong Kong therefore should not define its maritime future simply by whether it can return to the top of global container rankings. Its greater opportunity lies in becoming a global maritime services and governance hub or a global maritime capital — a place where capital, law, risk, data and rules converge.

Hong Kong’s traditional advantages remain strong. It has a free port, a common law system, mature financial markets, bilingual professional services, and deep international business networks. These strengths are difficult to replicate. Yet the environment around Hong Kong has changed profoundly.

Within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, ports in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other cities have grown rapidly in scale, efficiency and hinterland connectivity. Given Hong Kong’s land and cost constraints, it is neither realistic nor necessary for the city to compete only on cargo volume. If throughput remains the primary benchmark, Hong Kong may misread the nature of its own transformation.

The city’s future lies in upgrading from a port-based shipping center to a service-based and rules-based maritime hub. Hong Kong already has a solid foundation in ship finance, maritime law, insurance, ship management, and dispute resolution. However, in some areas it still functions more as a service window than as a true center of rulemaking, product innovation and risk pricing. Global influence in marine insurance, reinsurance, standard contracts and maritime legal practice remains concentrated in traditional centers such as London. Hong Kong must move from providing services to shaping standards.

The establishment of the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) in Hong Kong offers an important opportunity. It strengthens the city’s role as an international legal and dispute resolution center and gives Hong Kong a new platform to contribute to global governance.

This is particularly relevant to shipping. Maritime disputes are often cross-border, multiparty and commercially sensitive. They may involve charter parties, shipbuilding, port investment, marine insurance, green fuel supply, sanctions compliance, logistics disruption, or Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects. In many such cases, parties do not simply need a winner and a loser. They need a practical solution that preserves business relationships and keeps supply chains moving.

Mediation can therefore play a valuable role alongside arbitration and litigation. If Hong Kong can combine mediation with its existing arbitration institutions, common law courts, maritime legal talent and links with Chinese mainland maritime courts, it can build a distinctive dispute resolution chain covering mediation, arbitration, litigation support and cross-border enforcement.

The future of shipping is not only about larger vessels or busier ports. It is about more reliable rules, more trusted institutions, and more resilient value chains. That is where Hong Kong’s greatest opportunity lies. If Hong Kong can seize this opportunity, it will not only consolidate its role as an international shipping center — it will become a global maritime capital

But credibility is essential. The IOMed must be seen as professional, neutral, and genuinely international. Its success will depend on transparent procedures, diverse expert panels, multilingual services, efficient case management, and successful early cases. Hong Kong should develop maritime mediation as a practical market product, promoting model clauses for ship finance, charter parties, marine insurance, port investment, commodity trading, and green fuel contracts.

Another priority is maritime insurance. The strategic value of insurance lies not only in capital capacity, but also in rulemaking power. Whoever designs the clauses, assesses the risks, prices the cover and manages the claims has influence over the shipping system itself.

Hong Kong should therefore move from being a maritime “risk pool” to becoming a maritime “rule pool”. It can develop new insurance and reinsurance products covering war risk, sanctions risk, cyber risk, green fuel liability, carbon compliance and supply chain disruption. By bringing together mainland insurers, Hong Kong’s financial market, international insurance institutions and reinsurance capital, the city can build a maritime risk management platform with Chinese characteristics and global credibility.

Commodity trading should also be placed at the center of Hong Kong’s maritime strategy. Shipping follows cargo, and cargo follows traders. Energy, minerals, agricultural products, and other bulk commodities account for a large share of global maritime trade. If Hong Kong wants to strengthen its shipping ecosystem, it must attract more commodity traders, trading houses, finance providers, and risk management institutions. This would create stronger demand for maritime legal services, insurance, financing, warehousing, logistics, and dispute resolution.

Hong Kong should also strengthen cooperation with Shanghai. The two cities should not be viewed as competitors, but as complementary engines of China’s maritime development. Shanghai has strong advantages in port scale, industrial depth, shipping exchanges, renminbi settlement, and onshore policy coordination. Hong Kong has unique strengths in offshore finance, common law, international insurance, arbitration, mediation, and global capital connectivity.

Together, Shanghai and Hong Kong can form a powerful national platform. Shanghai can help price shipping capacity and organize onshore resources, while Hong Kong can manage risk, connect global capital and provide internationally trusted legal services. Practical cooperation could include maritime finance corridors, joint insurance and reinsurance platforms, green shipping finance products, maritime data cooperation, and common guidelines for arbitration and mediation.

Within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong should avoid zero-sum competition with neighboring ports. Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Hong Kong each have different strengths. The region needs better coordination in customs procedures, green fuel infrastructure, smart logistics, multimodal transport, and international marketing. Hong Kong should retain a competitive physical port function, but its higher mission is to become the region’s international services, finance, law and risk management platform.

This also means Hong Kong needs new indicators of success. Instead of focusing on container throughput, the city should pay closer attention to the number of international maritime service firms based in Hong Kong, marine insurance premiums, reinsurance capacity, contracts using Hong Kong law or Hong Kong dispute resolution clauses, maritime mediation cases, green fuel bunkering volume, carbon certification business, commodity traders, maritime technology companies, and inflow of international talent.

These indicators would better reflect the real value of a modern international shipping center. More importantly, they would help Hong Kong measure its progress toward becoming a global maritime capital — a city with global influence in maritime finance, legal services, risk management, green transition and rulemaking.

Hong Kong’s maritime future will not be determined by nostalgia for a past port era. It will depend on whether the city can create new institutional value in a rapidly changing global shipping order. During the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, Hong Kong should move from being a logistics center to becoming a rules center; from facilitating cargo flows to shaping capital flows, legal flows, data flows, and trust flows.

The future of shipping is not only about larger vessels or busier ports. It is about more reliable rules, more trusted institutions, and more resilient value chains. That is where Hong Kong’s greatest opportunity lies. If Hong Kong can seize this opportunity, it will not only consolidate its role as an international shipping center — it will become a global maritime capital.

The author is a member of the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit Expert Group, and a member of the Hong Kong Maritime and Port Development Board.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.