ASEAN Ports Association Malaysia (MAPA)

The North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) registered some 13% increase in the volume of cargo it handled in October.

NBCT handled 94,570 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in October, compared with 83,103 TEUs in September.

Penang Port Sdn Bhd general manager Obaid Mansor told StarBiz that the higher cargo volume was driven by goods from southern Thailand, rise in local businesses’ imports and exports, and an increase in the volume of empty containers from India and the Middle-East.

“We are confident of achieving our target of 930,000 TEUs by the year-end, matching the volume of cargo handled in 2008,” he said.

On the expansion of NBCT, he said the work to extend the 900m berth to 1,500m would be completed a year earlier.

“The original schedule for completion was October 2011. We have finished adding 400m to the berth,” he said.

He also said NBCT had already received four of the seven post-Panamax gantry cranes that it had ordered. “The other three cranes will arrive in the first week of December. Each crane costs RM25mil,” he said.

By: The Star Online

PETALING JAYA: A number of port operators in the country have reported higher throughput volume for March but are cautious about volume going forward as the signs of recovery are still weak.

According to them, imports and exports as measured by twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) were up for March while transhipments – the shipment of goods to an intermediate destination before moving to another destination – were also up.

Westports Malaysia Sdn Bhd executive chairman Tan Sri G. Gnanalingam had noted earlier in a commentary that in March, Westports’ total volume, including imports, exports and transhipments, was up 10% compared with the previous three months.

He said the immediate question that came to mind was whether these were signs of recovery or if this was due to inventory corrections after managers cancelled their orders between October and December last year.

“As such, between April and June, we’ll begin to notice that the world will not only reinstate its inventory levels but also increase its orders simply because life must go on,” Gnanalingam said.

Captain Ismail Hashim, chief executive officer of Port of Tanjung Pelepas Sdn Bhd, which operates the number one transhipment port in the country, said volume grew 23% to 469,000 TEUs for March compared with February.

He said it was tricky to accurately predict the underlying reasons behind the recent increase in volume. “Whether the increase is sustainable over the longer term remains to be seen,” Ismail told StarBiz in an e-mail reply.

He said if the recent upturn was due to restocking of manufacturers’ orders as a result of them halting production abruptly earlier on when the crisis first started then the spike in volume could be “just a temporary pattern.”

Penang Port Sdn Bhd general manager Obaid Mansor said the Butterworth container terminal saw a bottoming in January when throughput was 30% lower than October 2008.

“The upturn in business was really registered in the export transhipment trade provided by our industrial hinterland,” he said, adding that a combination of improved demand for manufactured products, re-stocking, trade credit availability and demand from China and India could be the factors that contributed to an improvement in volume.

By FINTAN NG