Up to 80 per cent of Hong Kong\u2019s fishing vessels have suspended operations nearly a month ahead of a planned moratorium, according to a sector representative, as the doubling of \u201cred oil\u201d prices caused by the war in the Middle East has made going out to sea untenable for operators.<\/p>\n
Representatives for local transport and maritime sectors welcomed the two-week ceasefire announced by the United States and Iran and the subsequent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but called for targeted, temporary government subsidies to alleviate the financial strain of surging fuel prices.<\/p>\n
Cheung Siu-keung, chairman of the Hong Kong Fishermen Consortium, said on Wednesday that the maritime sector was among the hardest hit, and that 70 to 80 per cent of the local fleet had grounded their vessels before the annual fishing moratorium from May 1 to August 16, as they could no longer afford industrial \u201cred oil\u201d, which had more than doubled in price since the start of the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the current value of fish catches, the income generated is not even enough to cover the cost of the diesel used,\u201d Cheung told a radio programme.<\/p>\n
He noted that fuel accounted for 30 per cent of fishermen\u2019s total operating costs, and that 80 to 90 per cent of them had been operating at a loss.<\/p>\n
Red oil, or diesel that is dyed to indicate that it is tax-free for marine and industrial use, is a vital low-cost fuel for Hong Kong\u2019s ferries and fishing vessels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Up to 80 per cent of Hong Kong\u2019s fishing vessels have suspended operations nearly a month ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[172320,72,172318,172316,113,240,172317,172321,61,60,3410,172322,43,3324,17573,102822,150177,172319,81583,115,1519],"class_list":{"0":"post-387860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-affluent-coach-services","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cheung-kim-ping","11":"tag-cheung-siu-keung","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-hong-kong","14":"tag-hong-kong-fishermen-consortium","15":"tag-hong-kong-guangdong-boundary-crossing-bus-association","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-mtr","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-pakistan","22":"tag-scmp","23":"tag-sha-tin","24":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","25":"tag-tang-fei","26":"tag-tehran","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}