'Hutchison Port Holding's "Port of Felixstowe: Port of Britain": a Chinese private sector success?

Styan, David (2023) 'Hutchison Port Holding's "Port of Felixstowe: Port of Britain": a Chinese private sector success? In: Blanchard, J.M. (ed.) Chinese Overseas Ports in Europe and the Americas: Understanding Smooth and Turbulent Waters. Routledge Studies on the Political Economy of Asia 1. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 26-46. ISBN 9781032511061.

Abstract

This chapter analyses Chinese investments in the United Kingdom (UK)’s largest container port, Felixstowe, on the east coast of England. Multinational ports group, privately-owned and Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports Holdings (HPH) bought the port in 1991 and expanded it thereafter in line with its pan-European and global network approach to port operations. Chinese investment has been crucial to the expansion of Felixstowe. This chapter argues that HPH, as part of a privately-owned diversified conglomerate, has faced no regulatory or strategic concerns over Chinese port ownership in the UK. This has allowed relatively smooth and profitable growth. This is due both to its parent company’s extensive and longstanding presence in other areas of Britain’s privatized infrastructure, as well as its origins in Hong Kong. This contrasts with investments by the state-owned China Merchants Group or COSCO in ports elsewhere, examined in other chapters in this volume. The chapter further demonstrates that Hutchison’s expansion of Felixstowe over three decades has accentuated both the port’s dominance of the UK container trade and Britain’s shipping ties with China, both reflecting and reinforcing the group’s global strategy.

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