Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) emerged tops in the Trade Facilitation Category at the eAsia Week 2004 Awards ceremony held in Taipei, Taiwan, on September 24.
 
Its winning project, entitled “The PTP Community System,” triumphed over Singapore, which came second with its project enitled “Certificate of Origin”. Other ports nominated for the category were from Australia, India, Iran and Mongolia.
 
PTP chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Sidik Shaik Osman said their project outlined the integration of various port information systems into a community information portal.
 
“This enable the port and its user community to achieve higher efficiency in carrying out port business transactions previously unseen in Malaysia’s port industry,” he said in a statement released yesterday.
 
He said PTP will continue to innovate and pioneer new advances in electronic commerce to ensure the port remains at the forefront of technological advancement as the region’s leading transshipment hub.
 
The eAsia Awards 2004 is sanctioned by the Asia-Pacific Council fro Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business based in Taiwan. It was hosted by the country’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Asia-Pacific Council for Electronic Business and the Institute for Information Industry.
 
The purpose of the award is to recognize the significant efforts made within the Afact community and encourage experience-sharing.
 
Since its official launch in 2000, PTP has grown from strength-to-strength in volume and productivity.
 
Among its big clients are two of the world’s biggest shipping companies – Maersk Sealand of Denmark and Evergreen Marine Corp from Taiwan.
 
The port recorded its highest firs-half throughput ever, handling two million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first six months of 2004. It registered a staggering 25 per cent rise in container volume from the 1.6 million TEUs handled during the corresponding period last year.
 
Transhipment volumes in the first half of 2004, totaled 1.8 million TEUs, up 24.6 per cent on the 1.5 million TEUs handled in the first six months of 2003.
 
In the first of 2004, 1,584 vessels called at PTP compared with 1,504 in the same period last year, an increase of 5.3 per cent. The increase equates to around three extra calls per week.
 
With cargo volumes rising on major trade routes, in particular Asia-Europe, PTP is experiencing all-round strong growth. It is for this reason that PTP has been able to maintain its pole position as transshipment port.
 
The port is expected to handle over 4 million TEUs this year.