Singapore to lose Evergreen?
Fairplay
SPECULATION mounted in Singapore today that Taiwan container giant Evergreen was shifting its container calls to neighbour and rival Tanjung Pelepas.
At the launch of NYK’s shipmanagement venture in Singapore, the talk was not whether reports, which apparently were aired over a local radio station were true, but when the move would be made. Officials of neither Evergreen nor PSA Corp, which operates the island city’s giant terminals, were available for comment, but reports said both had denied reports.
By a curious coincidence it was last autumn that Maersk, which had fed Singapore’s container terminals to the tune of 2M TEU a year, shifted its container hub to the Malaysian port, in which it bought 30 per cent equity.
Pelepas, which critics have been prone to describe as a ‘one-line’ wonder, has been aggressively wooing mainline operators. Contrary to the prevailing trend, Pelepas volumes surged in the third quarter of 2001 while Singapore’s volumes have been dropping steadily.