Government To Form National Port Council To Coordinate Port Management
www.bernama.com - Apr 22, 2010

PETALING JAYA, April 22 (Bernama) -- The government has agreed to set up the National Port Council to coordinate management of ports nationwide.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat said further details on the matter would be announced later and that the setting up of the council, to be chaired by him, would not jeopardise the functions of existing port authorities.

"The cabinet and the National Economic Council have approved the formation of the National Port Council to coordinate matters pertaining to management of ports to further promote them at international level to attract more clients," he added.

Ong told this to reporters after the award giving ceremony for excellent achievements in the world standings of top container ports of the world at the Grand Dorrsett Hotel near here on Thursday.

At the function, the country's two leading ports, Port Klang and the Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) were honoured for being in the list of the world's best 20 ports last year.

Port Klang ranked 14th, from 15th in 2008, while PTP moved up to 17th last year, from 18th the previous year.

According to Ong, PTP was also three ports in the world which showed positive growth last year, despite the world economic recession.

"Last year, only three of the world's best top 20 ports recorded a positive growth and among the three, PTP recorded the highest growth at 7.5 per cent, compared with the Port of Guangzhou and Port of Tianjin in China which recorded growth of 1.7 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively," he added.

The Port of Singapore topped the world's best 20 ports with 25.866 million TEUs, followed by Port of Shanghai (25.0 million TEUs) and Port of Hong Kong with 20.98 million TEUs.

Port Klang handled 7.3 million TEUs and PTP 6 million TEUs.

Earlier in his speech, Ong said that ports and the shipping industry, particularly container handling, was a highly competitive industry.

"Ports must be attractive enough to accommodate the ever changing requirements and trends of the industry. The most significant trend is to move towards larger container vessels," he added.

He said that in the 1980's, the largest container vessels could accommodate just over 3,000 TEUs from today's vessels of 10,000 TEUs.

He said container shipping line operators were therefore under pressure to achieve economies of scale whereby a 50 percent increase in vessel size could result in 20 percent reduction in operating and voyage cost.