HK Boosts Amendment on Transshipment Ban Due to Great Loss

Ellesmere Zhu

According to the official website of Hong Kong SAR Legislative Council, Transport and Logistics Bureau drafted a paper for discussion on the Legislative Council Panel on Nov. 28 dubbed “Enhancing the Control and Regulation for Transhipment of Alternative Smoking Products”.

In view of the emergence of ASPs and their associated health risk, the Government has introduced legislative amendments through the Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Ordinance 2021, which bans the import, manufacture, sale, distribution and advertisement of ASPs (including electronic cigarettes, heat-not-burn products and herbal cigarettes).

Only 7 months of the ban pushed the government to admit the great loss caused by the ban. The government is now urgent to make shifts in the laws to turn the table.

2FIRSTS summarized the paper with 5 key takeaways as follows:

1. From May to October 2022, air cargo volume of HKIA recorded a significant decline by 18% on average compared with the same period last year, partly because the ban set Hong Kong apart from the transshipment business of e-cigarettes produced in the mainland.

2. According to the logistics trade, about 470 companies out of about 1 470 companies (i.e. about one-third) in freight forwarding business are involved in ASP transhipment, handling almost 330 000 tonnes of ASP transhipment and related products per year.

3. the ban of the inter-modal ASP transhipment has caused a substantial economic loss to our air cargo transhipment business and the overall economy of Hong Kong. In particular, air cargo export (including, among other things, inter-modal ASP transhipment) dropped by 22% during the same period.

4.  In order to maintain Hong Kong’s position as a leading international aviation and logistics hub while ensuring that our policy on importation ban on ASPs would be duly preserved, the Government plans to refine the existing control and regulatory regime for ASP transhipment by making use of the following new regulatory framework to provide for inter-modal transhipment in a controlled and secure manner.

5. In view of the urgency to alleviate the impact on the transhipment business brought by the ban on inter-modal ASPtranshipment, we aim at introducing the legislative amendments into the Legislative Council in early-2023.

Issues above were discussed on the panel held on Monday, 28 November 2022 in the Legislative Council Complex with following attendees:

Miss Pamela LAM, JP

Deputy Secretary for Transport and Logistics 5;

Ms Joanne CHU

Principal Assistant Secretary for Transport and Logistics 10;

Ms Lydia LAM

Assistant Director-General of Trade and Industry (Mainland);

Ms Ida NG

Deputy Commissioner (Control and Enforcement) (Ag.) / Assistant Commissioner (Boundary and Ports);

Ms Catherine LAI

Head of Airport Command;

Ms Cissy CHAN

Executive Director, Commercial;

Mr Ian KWOK

General Manager, Aviation Logistics.

 More details and information will be revealed in the following days. Please stay tuned.

References:

Discussion Paper

Information Note

Attendence List