Jessie Chung, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Container Terminal Operators Association (HKCTOA) explained many of the initiatives launched by MTL and designed to improve container traffic between Southern China and Hong Kong. MTL wants Hong Kong’s container terminals not to be seen as rivals but as partners. They want the terminals to work together to facilitate the smooth flow of containers from Southern China to Hong Kong. “I was heavily involved in this project, and came to know more about the industry outside the terminal apart from the loading/offloading of containers,’’ Chung said. “I learned how the cargo moves from Dongguan, Guangzhou and other parts of Southern China across the border and to the terminal here in Hong Kong.” On the roadside, MTL decided to build a green lane for truckers moving containers from Southern China across the border to Hong Kong. MTL hoped by using technology such as GPS and RFID it could have a seamless flow of containers from Southern China to Kwai Chung. “I had to talk to government officials and Customs to make this happen,” said Chung. On the seaside, MTL was involved in setting up an inland gate, a barge initiative for the seaside. Explaining the inland gate concept, Chung said: “If you have a container being transported from Zhongshan in Southern China to MTL we extend our gate to the Zhongshan terminal. That means when the container enters the Zhongshan terminal every piece of information about the container is uploaded into the Zhongshan computer and this information is then transferred to the MTL system. By this system we get all the information of that particular container and can plan ahead before it arrives at our terminal for transshipment.”“ Another MTL project launched by Chung and her colleagues was on the IT side. They toured around Europe and the US and even Singapore and came back and developed a benchmark for the terminal. “We developed an e-portal so that customers could input information or ask for information online on the website,’’ Chung recalls. The offshoot of the e-portal was another key project called community portal. Following discussions with HIT, a company called One Port was set up and the two terminals now jointly provide some e-services. The COSCO-HIT terminal is also involved in the project.