They say it will serve as the most effective alternative cargo hub to Singapore.

The forwarders believe that in the long term, PTP will become Malaysia's top cargo load centre with the other ports in the country contributing to its growth.

While Port Klang - the country's leading port - may be designated as Malaysia's cargo load centre by the Government for now, it is the users ultimately who will decide whether a port will be a hub, sub-hub or a feeder port.

With support from the shipping lines - both feeder and main line operators - forwarders, hauliers, logistics players and shippers, PTP will be "the port of the next millennium".

However, before this becomes a reality, the Johor forwarders say that PTP must give top priority to three key areas - efficiency, transparency in its management, and competitive cost - to ensure its success.

"With these priorities in place, importers and exporters will give PTP a try," Johor Freight Forwarders Association (Joffa) president Toon Teng Fatt said in an interview in Johor Baru.

The first phase in the development of PTP, costing RM2.8 billion, is scheduled for completion by mid-2001. Under that phase, six berths with a total length of 2.16 km will be built.

The first and second berths, each measuring 360 metres, were completed recently.

When completed the port will emerge as the region's newest transhipment hub handling an annual throughput of 3.8 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).

Toon said besides its strategic location on the south-western tip of Peninsular Malaysia, and the fact that it is a mere 45 minutes from the international shipping lanes, the deepwater PTP is set to become a very busy port.

PTP will be equipped with some of the latest facilities such as super-post panamax gantry cranes and IT systems to handle the latest generation of containerships.

The construction of a new access road to PTP, set for completion in August, will also cut down travelling time from the North-South Expressway to the Second Link with Singapore to a matter of minutes.

With the proposed rail link, PTP will support the multimodalism network stretching to neigbouring countries in the south and north of the peninsula.

"We believe that with these facilities and systems in place, PTP will be an efficient port," Toon said.

Besides ensuring efficiency of the port, the forwarders said PTP management should also be seen as transparent without any conflict of interest with port users.

"The PTP management should consider port users as their business partnership," he said.

Malaysian importers and exporters who ship directly via PTP instead of Singapore, will not have to bear the levy of RM100 and RM200 imposed on trucks using the Causeway or Second Link.

"To promote PTP as a transhipment hub, the Government should consider exempting cargo originating from the port for distribution by trucks to third countries from paying the exit or entry levy," Toon said.

He said he understood that the PTP was working hard to woo shipping lines - both feeder and main line operators - to call at the port.

"We believe that a substantial amount of Malaysian cargo transhipped in Singapore will start flowing back to Malaysia when PTP begins operations.

"Shippers will be attracted by the cost savings, efficiency, regular and higher frequencies of shipping services to worldwide destinations, without having to undergo the hassle and delays with two Customs checkpoints at the Causeway and Second Link."

According to Johor Customs, at the height of the Malaysian economy, about 3,000 trucks crossed both the Second Link and Causeway daily.

These lorries bring in anything from perishable goods, finished products to raw materials either for the Singapore market for transhipment to a third country for the Malaysian market.

The introduction of the integrated cargo community electronic data interchange network by the Customs Department's Sistem Maklumat Kastam and the Electronic Data Interchange at PTP, the Second Link and the Causeway early next year, will be a boon to the new port and its clients.

This cargo-based community system for the Johor cargo community will be similar to the Port Klang Community System which has been in place since 1994.