Ports have chased one number for decades.
TEU.
More boxes meant more growth.
Hong Kong once handled around 22m TEU.
Last year, it handled less than 13m TEU.
Yet its new strategy is not simply to win them back.
It is changing the question.
So what should a mature port optimise for?
Here are 5️⃣ signals behind it:
1️⃣ Hong Kong lost huge volume
Throughput peaked near 22m TEU in 2004.
In 2025, it fell below 13m TEU.
Mainland ports now compete for the same hinterland.
💡 Volume alone cannot be the recovery plan.