In mapping out his vision for Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying draws much of his inspiration from arguably the city's greatest rivals: London and New York.

Leung, the chief executive-elect of the special administrative region, said both cities are more advanced in several sectors - and that it is time to catch up.

The British capital offers key lessons on how Hong Kong can once again become a leading shipping hub, he told reporters recently.

"London, instead of shipping freight in and out of ports, offers services, including ship sales and rent, registrations, financing, management and insurance," said the 58-year-old, who studied valuation and estate management at Bristol Polytechnic (now the University of West England) in the 1970s.

These services offer greater economic value, he said. "If Hong Kong simply tries to double cargo throughput, it will expand its scale, but it will not take it to a higher level. We can do better than just expanding scale."

Hong Kong's ports used to be the busiest in the world, but that was before the rapid development of ports on the mainland.

Shanghai is now the world's largest port in terms of freight throughput.

Hong Kong's status as a world shipping center was being eroded, some feared.

China is now a major ship-building nation and it handles huge volumes of cargo so it needs a shipping center, and Hong Kong meets all the conditions, said Leung, who will start his five-year term on July 1.

Hong Kong's advantages include its multilingual workforce, international links and legal traditions, he said, adding that City University of Hong Kong has also established a research center for maritime and transportation law, and offers a master's degree in the field.

Hong Kong's future would be assured and advanced if the children of port workers can become maritime lawyers or insurance specialists, he said.

Hong Kong, as a financial center, also has room to improve, he said. It has often been mentioned in the same category as London and New York but Leung believed that there was no room for complacency and much work remained to be done.

"Just take a walk in Hong Kong's financial district, and then in London and New York, and you can feel the difference," he said.

More financial services have yet to be explored, he said. He cited, as an example, that while every bank in Hong Kong knows how to finance real estate, "not every bank knows how to do financing for ships".

The mainland, with its resources and production capabilities, will create opportunities that Hong Kong can grasp to elevate itself as a financial center, he said.

"I have a lot of confidence in Hong Kong's future economic well-being. We can clearly see the direction ahead of us," he said.

The incoming chief executive also wants to tackle poverty levels.

He conceded that Hong Kong has a wide wealth gap. But "the gap itself is not my concern. I'm concerned about those living on incomes that are too low" and are impoverished, he said, adding that the solution is not necessarily "to narrow the wealth gap".

One of the measures his administration will adopt will be to improve the standard of living of those that are marginalized through "a secondary distribution of wealth", such as building more public housing while trying to stabilize real estate prices.

He also advocates greater communication with those on the lower rungs of the wealth ladder.

One of his ideas is to provide more quality employment opportunities. He cited Yuen Long residents, saying they had to commute two hours a day to hotels in Tsim Sha Tsui or Mong Kok to work as cleaners.

What they suggested was that the government should allocate land in the district for developers to build hotels to accommodate mainland tourists who come through Shenzhen, so that they can work near home, take care of their families and save precious time.

Leung called the idea "brilliant". "Chinese people have the ability to make a living with their own hands. Our government looks forward to better satisfying workers' needs over the next five years," he said.

Colonial influence still felt: chief executive-elect

In the 15 years since Hong Kong returned to China, its residents have developed an increasing sense of "one country". However, chief executive-elect Leung Chun-ying said it will take a long time before remnants of colonial influence disappear entirely.

Since the handover in 1997, about 300,000 Hong Kong residents have gone to work on the mainland, Leung said, citing incomplete statistics. "It is a considerable number, given the total working population in Hong Kong is 3.7 million," he said.

However, many small things in daily life show that the influence of colonial governance can still be seen in the special administrative region.

For example, instead of saying "going to the mainland", some Hong Kong people still say they are "leaving for China", he said. He also quoted a mainland friend quoting a Hong Kong saleswoman who said she once visited Beijing on "your National Day".

"They may not have any special political stance, but Hong Kong was under British colonial control for more than 100 years, and it's not easy to remove the influence on people's feelings instantly," he said. "We'll keep doing our job on this, but we cannot rush. It should be done step by step."

Leung said the work requires education about history to make Hong Kong people better understand the country, as well as work to bring people from Hong Kong and the mainland closer.

First, he said, to draw people's feeling closer to the motherland, efforts must be made first to unite Hong Kong people.

Leung, whose father left Weihai in Shandong province to work as a policeman in Hong Kong 80 years ago, said many people, including his parents, regarded Hong Kong as only a temporary stop in their journey.

His parents' generation always wanted to return to the mainland, but many Hong Kong people in the 1970s and 1980s migrated to other countries.

"It is a very important job to have the 7 million Hong Kong people regard Hong Kong as their home," he said.

xindingding@chinadaily.com.cn