Mr Strand, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this dinner hosted by the Hong Kong Maritime Industry Council. I am especially happy to see our BIMCO friends again. I still have fresh memory of the BIMCO "Check Before Fixing" Seminar around the same time last year. The weather then was much milder. At a much hotter time last summer, we also had a big gathering of BIMCO members in Hong Kong for their General Meeting 2007. Today, we are glad to have a reunion on the occasion of the BIMCO Asia Shipping School 2008.

Our successful co-operation with BIMCO has gone in tandem with the boom in shipping industry and enthusiasm in shipping careers and professional training over the past few years. Growing demand for shipping capacity has led to a global shortage of shipping professionals, making human resources training a priority. Hong Kong, as the seventh largest maritime centre in the world with a Shipping Register of over 36 million registered tonnage, has seen rising pay cheques and rosy career prospects for shipping professionals. While we are happy for our industry colleagues, we have spared no effort in training more people to benefit from and to sustain this development in the industry.

To nurture home grown management talents with seafaring experience, we put in place in 2004 a Sea-going Training Incentive Scheme to support youngsters' pursuit of a maritime career. We are encouraged by the positive response: 67 cadets have benefited from it, and some have already obtained their first professional qualification.

We also set up the Hong Kong Maritime Scholarship Scheme with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to attract local and Mainland talents to take up maritime related post-graduate programmes in Hong Kong. This will help ensure a steady stream of quality professionals to support the long-term development of our shipping and maritime industry.

Shipping and maritime services evolve over time. Continuing professional training to update and improve our maritime services standard is necessary. With the strategic position of Hong Kong between East and West, we are a focal point for shipping business. To maintain our status as an international maritime centre, we shall enter into a tripartite agreement with the University of Hong Kong and the Dalian Maritime University next week to fund the exchange of law school students between the two universities to train up professionals knowledgeable in maritime law both under the common law and the Mainland legal systems. With this, we are not only investing in the continuity of quality service in the region, we are also investing in the future of the global shipping business.

The Asia Shipping School held in Hong Kong this week provides an excellent opportunity for maritime professionals from Europe and the region to gather together to refresh their knowledge, share their experience, and to explore co-operation. The Gala dinner tonight is not only a "graduation" dinner to celebrate the success of the Asia Shipping School, it is also a precious networking opportunity for the shipping communities around the world. I hope the graduates and industry colleagues would bring home both useful knowledge from the Asia Shipping School as well as friendship and new business opportunities.

I would like to thank BIMCO for bringing to Hong Kong this very high quality training programme. I would also like to thank the Hong Kong Maritime Industry Council and the Hong Kong Port Development Council for their advice on our many training initiatives. Credit should go to the ship owners and the maritime services sector for their support and active participation, too. May I wish you all an enjoyable evening and a prosperous and healthy Year of the Rat.

Thank you.