Trade Council and DP World

Today started with a quick jog around Victoria Park. We then departed for the Hong Kong Trade and Development Center. There, we learned about how important tourism is to Hong Kong and manufacturing to China. Hong Kong has 100,000 companies with operations in the Chinese mainland. Since Hong Kong is perfectily situated on the ocean and the southern most part of China, it plays a huge role in transporting products made in China to all over the world. They are within four hours of all major Asian cities and five hours of half the worlds markets. Hong Kong is the #1 international sea and cargo center. The Trade and Development Center touts is online service and forming business partnership with Chinese manufacturing and other business venture. The also host a world expo for small and medium-sized enterprises to meet business partners and exchange ideas. They really gave us a good idea of Hong Kong business relations.

Our next stop was to DP World. They have the largest single concrete structure in the world - certified by the Guiness Book of World Records. It is 9 million square feet in total. This is the port terminal company that wanted to purchase the US ports, but was denied authority to do so for security reasons. They bring in vessels that can carry over 4,700 semi-trailors. They hold inventory for lots of different companies such as IBM, McDonalds, Intel, UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc. Since there is so much inventory on sight, the security was high, we weren't allowed to get off the bus and were escorted by a leading and trailing police car. They use a computerized tracking method that allows them to identify each container at a single point on each vessel. Each vessel has a certain time to unload and be loaded again by the huge cranes. The cranes moved each container so quickly, it was amazing. DP world was so fascinating!!! They move huge amounts of inventory from China to the rest of the world. This was definitely a highlight of the trip so far!!

After DP world, we relaxed and then found a Mexican place for dinner. Not like Mexican in the US, that's for sure! We even found a Russian Restaurant/Bar where we put on ridicolous fur coats and hats and went into a ice room - the tables were giant blocks of ice!!
Again, here are some amazing shots of the city and area. Tomorrow, we are off for Mainland China.