Marine scene: Chief Executive Donald Tsang visits the Marine Department to learn more about traffic control, maritime rescue and co-ordination, and ship registry and safety.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang has hailed the Marine Department for its good work in shipping registry and safety. He hopes the department will continue to strengthen Hong Kong's status as an international shipping centre.

Visiting the department today, Mr Tsang said he was pleased to learn that Hong Kong is now ranked one of the top five in the world merchant fleet. From 1995 to 1997, many shipowners switched their flags from Hong Kong to other flags and the tonnage on the ship register reached a record low of about 5.4 million gross tonnage.

Through the efforts of the Shipping Register, a series of new measures were implemented. Since then, the size of the Hong Kong fleet has grown five times and has just crossed the 33.4 million gross tonnage mark on the Shipping Register, with a record high of 1,177 registered Hong Kong ships.

Safety plaudits

Mr Tsang visited the Vessel Traffic and the Maritime Rescue & Co-ordination Centres to learn more about traffic control, maritime rescue and co-ordination, and ship registry and safety.

The Maritime Rescue & Co-ordination Centre handled 214 emergencies last year, 53 of which developed into search and rescue operations saving 238 people. Mr Tsang commended the centre for its prompt response to distress situations.

"We are very proud of our elite marine search and rescue team which always displays a high degree of expertise, efficiency, courage and devotion to duty in executing plans to rescue people facing difficulties at sea," he said.

The Chief Executive then boarded the Government launch Tin Hau to proceed to the Government Dockyard on Stonecutters Island and was briefed on the operation of the department.

Before ending his visit, Mr Tsang toured the dockyard workshops and chatted with technical staff to learn more about the maintenance of government vessels.