Hong Kong chief executive CY Leung told a gathering of the Financial Services Development Council Sunday that the special administrative region’s government is in the process of setting up a maritime authority.

Leung said the new maritime authority would be designed to cover, among other things, financial services. 

“Our traditional services and financial industry are doing well and are growing, but we need to diversify. Compared to many other major financial centres, we are not as diversified,” Leung said, noting that Hong Kong’s financial services industry has room to grow by adding to nascent industry services, which can grow faster than traditional services.

“One example is maritime insurance and shipping, or ship leasing and financing. And these are all very highly paid jobs. We do very well by way of investment banking, commercial banking, other types of insurance, but we don't do much by way of maritime financial activities,” he said. “We need to upgrade ourselves, elevate ourselves, from what we have, namely largely port activities.”

Leung said the government is looking at the pros and cons of having a statutory maritime authority versus a non-statutory authority.