“Ports can drive forward the country’s economy by controlling and leading the entire supply chain process.

 

“Some activities that ports can think about providing include consolidation services, warehousing and storage operations, customs clearance, local collection and distribution, management of port and inland transport interface, IT and EDI, and research and development.

 

“Within Asean, we should also co-operate as we have a market of more that 500 million people and we need to utilize this strength,” he said in a paper entitled Hub Port Development in South East Asia presented at the 2nd Asean Ports Association conference and exhibition in Vietnam recently.

 

Sidik said that the US economic downturn had caused a reduction in demand and slower economic growth in Asean and a migration of manufacturing to new emerging markets.

 

“Globalisation of trade has directly impacted shipping demand and trade in Asia has moved from East Asia to Asian markets in search of lower labour costs and markets.

 

“The liner market has consolidated resulting in large shipping lines requiring even larger facilities, and fast changing market trends whereby new Asian economies need their own hubs.

 

According to Ocean Shipping Consultants and Sidik’s estimation, North Asia and South Asia would need more container terminal capacity for the next 11 years.

 

In 2005, North Asia would need a capacity for 105.7 million TEUs while South Asia’s demand would be 59.6 million TEUs while South Asia’s demand would be 59.6 million TEUs. The figures are expected to increase to 171.3 million TEUs in 2012 (North Asia) and 106.8 million TEUs (South Asia).

 

This is in comparison to Europe (75.3 million TEU in 2005 and 108.7 million TEU in 2012), North America 40.5 million in 2005 and 57.9 million in 2012, South America (27.2 million in 2005 and 43.8 million in 2012), Africa (6.3 million in 2005 and 10.8 million in 2012) and Middle East (22.6 million in 2005 and 38.8 million in 2012).

 

Sidik said trends in liner shipping such as building of larger vessels and reduction in the number of port calls and faster ships to serve regional feeder ports would require ports to change their operations.

 

“There would be a demand for increased terminal productivity in response to demanding trade. The large divergence between demand and supply growth in liner shipping resulted in increased hub-and-spoke concept.

 

“Vessels orders are already averaging between 6,000 TEUs and 8,000 TEUs and there is a real possibility of 12,000 TEUs to 15,000 TEUs class ships coming into service between the years 2005 and 2008.

 

“Berths of up to 400m length overall will be needed, as well as wide access channels with depths of up to 17m and crane outreach of 22 boxes across,” he said.