PTP bucks the trend
Fairplay International
MALAYSIA’S Port of Tanjung Pelepas has revealed strong third-quarter figures, bucking the trend elsewhere of falling container volumes. Singapore’s neighbour draws strength from its 30 per cent equity holder, global container line Maersk Sealand. Between July and September, PTP handled 560,000 TEU, 19,000 boxes more than the previous quarter.
Volumes for the first nine months are close to 1.5M TEU. PTP chief executive Mohd Sidik Shaik Osman attributed the growth to increasing local support. "With current economic levels uncertain, PTP is increasing all measures to secure new users to the terminal," he said.
Shaik Osman, however, quashed reports that PTP was aiming to cash in on world tension after the terrorist attacks on the US. A report in a Singapore-based newspaper said PTP was ready to serve as a key storage location for Asian cargo bound for the Middle East and the Red Sea if that region became unsettled as a result of military action.
A PTP spokesman was quoted in the report as saying: "PTP is well poised to take on that role." But Shaik Osman told Fairplay: "PTP has never issued such a statement in reference to being a strategically positioned storage port or on recent world events."