Besides the territorial waters of Hong Kong, the area includes international waters lying to the north of latitude 10° north, to the west of longitude 120° east, and bounded by mainland China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan.
The area covered is known as the Hong Kong Maritime Search and Rescue Region.
[1] The MRCC is a co-ordination centre and neither possesses nor has direct command over search and rescue (SAR) resources.
Its role is to co-ordinate all available SAR resources to perform a maritime search and rescue mission.
In doing this it may call on the resources of:[1][2] For administrative purposes, the MRCC forms part of the Hong Kong Marine Department.