To understand what effects the incident may have brought to the members of the Hong Kong Exporters' Association in their exports to the US, the Association has recently conducted a survey with the members. The results reveal some findings that the majority of the surveyed members were not affected in their overall business and only 10 percent had to make new order arrangements with US buyers.

No Major Impact on Export Situation
In terms of change of placement of future orders from US importers and buyers, almost 90 percent of the members who participated in the survey responded that they had not been affected at all; and only a small proportion of the members reported change of new order situation. About 2% of our members had lost orders due to the closure.

In the area of export business to the US during the strike period, over 60 percent of the respondents reported no negative impact on their export situation. The main reason why they could evade the trauma of the incident was that their goods to the US had been successfully shipped out prior to the US strike. Exporters whose major export markets were EU and Japan seemed not to have been affected by the incident. As far as the major effects of the port closure are concerned, only a relatively small percentage of the HKEA members had to delay or change the schedule for their shipments while only several members indicated that the incident had resulted in rental costs arising from stock holdup at warehouses.

Effective Remedial Measures Taken
The surveyed members were apt to take remedial action to reduce any adverse effects to the minimum. The findings showed that almost 70 percent of our members affected by the incident would liaise directly with importers or agents in the US to develop contingency plans. Other measures that the members tended to use included shifting their shipments to US east coast, Canada or Mexico; or shifting to air-freight for some urgently needed or time-critical goods.

With the re-opening of the US ports during the 80-day cooling-off period, the Association hopes that the shipping situation will resume to normal. So far, the HKEA has only received members' enquiry on air-freight rates and the shipping schedule but no request for specific assistance has been reported.