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While Hong Kong Port’s yard area at KTCTs is rather limited, the demand for land to support the transhipment business has risen. Therefore, a large amount of non-terminal land in the Kwai Tsing area is planned for port back-up uses. However, quite a lot of these back-up sites are not well utilised. Our proprietary geographic information system analysis based on satellite images, aerial photos, Outline Zoning Plans, a digital land boundary map (ic1000), and field visits showed that of the 59 sites, totalling 122.6 hectares of port back-up land around KTCTs, 42.4% is not efficiently utilised, with 7.7 hectares of land currently left vacant and 44.3 hectares used as open air parking sites (Figure 16). We have attached the details of the 59 sites in Appendix, with the years of under-utilisation (vacant or used as open air parking, by observing past aerial photos taken by the Lands Department) recorded for each site. On average, the sites have been under-utilised for 13.5 years. The track record of the sites that are currently under-utilised is poorer than average. Sites that are currently vacant had been under-utilised for 16.8 years on average, and those used for open air parking now had been under-utilised for 21.9 years on average. Some of these sites have even been under-utilised for 20 to 30 years.Among the 59 sites listed in the appendix, 17 sites were discussed in a study conducted by the Transport and Housing Bureau (THB) in 2015, with a future land usage plan proposed (Table 2). However, most of the proposals still haven’t been implemented.Over 40% of port back-up land near Kwai Tsing Container Terminals is under-utilisedSingapore’s port area is over three times the size of the area of KTCTs. Thus although Singapore has a container throughput that is double that of Hong Kong, it still has a larger yard-to-throughput ratio than Hong Kong. In addition, Singapore is now in the process of relocating its container terminals to the new Tuas Mega Port on some 1,400 hectares of land, which is 1.6 times the size of Singapore’s existing ports.12 The satellite images also showed that Singapore’s port area is large enough to support its port operation, so there is no need to designate additional back-up land near the yard to support the port operations. Also, the boundary of Singapore’s terminal area is relatively straight and clean, leaving no sites in corners or under bridges. The sufficient yard area and well-planned boundary explain the better overall utilisation of land in the port area of Singapore.12 JLL. (2018). Singapore’s west beckons.30