The impact of the financial tsunami on Hong Kong port

Abstract

We apply intervention analysis to examine the impact of the financial tsunami on container throughputs for Hong Kong port quantitatively. Evidences from ARIMA-intervention model show that the real impact of the financial tsunami on Hong Kong port happened earlier than the observable fall in the throughput data, namely significant impact started around May 2008, while the forecasting model with considering financial tsunami from Sept. 2008 to Oct. 2009 is superior. VAR-intervention analysis is employed to compare the Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports. Our findings suggest that Shenzhen port is more sensitive to the financial tsunami than Hong Kong port, showing an earlier and deeper impact. Their relationship also changed after the financial tsunami, namely Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports become less dependent on each other. These findings remind us that, when considering the impact of the financial tsunami on port, one should not casually choose a starting time point based on the visual observation from the data because there is a time delay between the real impact on container throughput and its manifestation in the throughput data series.