ASEAN Ports Association Malaysia (MAPA)

Port Klang will have the capacity to handle almost 20 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers by 2016 as both Northport Malaysia Bhd and Westports Malaysia Sdn Bhd are undergoing expansion plans.

Port Klang Authority Chairman Datuk Dr Teh Kim Poo said the authority was also in the midst of obtaining relevant approval to deepen the existing channels to 18 meters.

“This will make Port Klang competitive and a preferred choice to our customers,” he said at a logistics forum and exhibition here Monday.

Earlier, he said Northport would be able to handle 5.6 million TEUs this year after the conversion of Wharf 8A.

Northport was also in the process of expanding its break bulk and dry bulk handling facilities towards the North of Wharf 25.

Meanwhile, Wesport can handle 14 million TEUs after container terminal (CT) six is completed this year.

“Today, Port Klang handles almost 50 per cent of Malaysia’s sea-borne container trade,” Teh said, adding that, ports in the country handled about 20 million TEUs last year.

Port Klang has trade connections with over 120 countries worldwide and dealings with more than 500 ports throughout the globe, Teh added. BERNAMA

ASEAN Strategic Transport Plan (ASTP) 2011 -2015, aka Brunei Action Plan (BAP) 2011-2015 is a successor to ASEAN Transport Action Plan (ATAP) which expired in 2010. “Brunei Action Plan” (BAP) was presented and adopted during the 16th ASEAN Transport Meeting in November 2010. It was discuss at the 21st Maritime Transport Working Group (MTWG), March 2011 at Kota Kinabalu for the first time.

BAP is one of the initiatives to provide reference in guiding ASEAN Transport Cooperation and integration in the next five years. It covers three main sectors land, air, and maritime transport, and transport facilitation.

BAP was formulated, prepared and submitted by Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) Study Team.

In the 21st ASEAN Maritime Transport Working Group Meeting (AMTWG), Malaysia was appointed as the lead country for MTG-2 MTA7 No.1 “FORMULATE TRAINING PROGRAM TO ENHANCE CAPABILITY OF PORT PERSONNEL BY 2012”.

With this appointment Malaysia has to come up with the best standardized training program that can be used by ASEAN ports as a guideline to their training program to enhance capability of port personnel.

In order to develop the program that suit the needs of, and compatible with the culture in ports of ASEAN, Malaysia, is seeking the cooperation of ASEAN member states, through the channel of the ASEAN Ports Association (APA) Malaysia, to provide feedback and share any useful information pertaining the existing reputable training program(s) for port personnel that the port has, or any information or documentation that the port feels necessary and significant to share among ASEAN member states.

Any information shared thought this survey page will be kept and used as reference by Malaysia for the purpose of project mentioned above. The developed training program then will be presented in the future ASEAN MTWG meeting; open for comments and will be adopted as official reference for ASEAN member states.

Thank you for your time in completing this survey. We thank you in advance for your cooperation and support.

A very good morning.

First & foremost on behalf of ASEAN Ports Association, Malaysia, allow me to record our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the secretariat & all of the member of ASEAN Ports Association for giving our country Malaysia the honour to host the 37th ASEAN Ports Association Main Committee Meeting. ASEAN Ports Association Malaysia is pleased to host this meeting in Kuantan the state capital of Pahang, Malaysia.

Dato’-Dato’, Ladies & Gentlemen,

I would like also to express my sincere appreciation & thanks to our Guest of Honour, The Honourable YB Dato’ Abdul Rahim Bakri, Deputy Minister of Transport for his agreement to deliver a keynote address and to officiate the opening of the 37th ASEAN Ports Association Main Committee Meeting.

I wish to extend also our deepest appreciation and thanks to Dato’-Dato’ and distinguished guest for being presence here. Indeed your presence here show & reflect of your strong and continuous support to the development of Kuantan Port. I hope your cooperation & contribution will continue towards a prosperous development of Kuantan Port in the future.

Dato’-Dato’, Ladies & Gentlemen,

On behalf of ASEAN Ports Association Malaysia, it gives me a great pleasure to wish a warm welcome to all the delegates of the 37th ASEAN Ports Association Main Meeting. The delegates are from the ASEAN Nation, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and not to forget our own country Malaysia.

We are glad that you all have landed here in Kuantan & hope that you will have a pleasant stay. Our team is ready to assist you in your need and interest. We hope that we will meet your expectation. While you are here, please take the opportunity to explore the city of Kuantan. Kuantan is the largest city in the East Coast of Malaysia with approximately 607,700 population. It is situated near the mouth of Kuantan River and faces the South China Sea. No wonder Kuantan’s main sight seeing attraction is the beautiful scenic beaches. Our team have planned for the delegates to have the excitement and enjoyment of one of the beaches by having lunch at the famous beach of Teluk Chempedak on the 24th of November.

If delegates like shopping, East Coast Mall, a shopping mall of 1 million sq feet of build-up area is located just in front of this hotel.

Distinguished delegates, I would suggest you to refer to your programme of activities book which have being provided to you during the registration. It is important to do so as to make sure that you all will not miss the excitement and benefit of the programme. I hope that the delegates will have a memorable time ini the next three days and I would like to wish all a fruithful gathering and networking.
Last but far from least, I wish to take this opportunity to thank all for participating in this opening ceremony of the 37th ASEAN Ports Association Meeting. Once again right from the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank our guest of honour YB Dato’ Abdul Rahim Bakri, Deputy Minister of Transport for his commitment to officiate the opening of this meeting.
Thank You.

KLANG: The proposed third port, to complement the existing Northport and Westports, is currently awaiting cabinet approval, Port Klang Authority chairman Datuk Dr Teh Kim Poo said.

Teh said the facility will help accommodate the growing demand.

“The existing North and West ports are capable of catering to port users until 2016. The establishment of a third port will greatly help these two,” he told reporters at the closing ceremony of Port Klang’s golden jubilee celebrations here, on Friday.

Teh said the third port is expected to be built on a private land, unlike its two predecessors, which are located in the land owned by the Port Klang Authority

The Port Klang Development Master Plan, completed in April this year, outlines a new site for port expansion as well as proposals on the redevelopment of its third port, Southpoint.

Northport and Westports are currently the two main ports in Port Klang, ranked among the world’s top 20 ports in the world.

The CMA-CGM Group expects to grow its container volume in Port Klang between 12 per cent and 13 per cent again this year, if everything goes reasonably well.

“It’s very difficult to predict. We don’t want to be too optimistic and tempt fate, because there is still a lot of uncertainties in the European and US economy but we think with the good recovery last year we can continue,” CMA-CGM & ANL Malaysia managing director Simon Whitelaw told reporters during an appreciation lunch to mark CMA-CGM’s for breaching 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in Port Klang.

CMA-CGM registered between 12 and 13 per cent growth in container volume in Port Klang in 2010, due to good growth in transshipment as well as local cargo.

Last year the company contributed about 26 per cent to Port Klang’s overall throughput volume.

Local cargo makes up about 10 – 12 per cent of the cargo CMA-CGM handles while the remainder is from transfer of containers and transshipment.

Whitelaw said however that the fourth quarter of 2010 saw some softening in cargo movement, as China’s consumer demand eased off.

“The fourth quarter was definitely softening a little bit partly because business tailed off, and China was not the big consumer demand everyone was expecting. Fourth quarter was a little bit softer from the third quarter,” Whitelaw said.

CMA-CGM started out in Port Klang in 1998, handling some 20,000 TEUs.

Meanwhile Port Klang Authority chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng said he is confident that the port would be able to at least maintain its world ranking of the previous year. Port Klang was ranked 13th in the world’s busiest container port in 2009.

“We improved by 21 per cent last year, we still don’t know the world ranking for 2010 but we expect to at least maintain it. I don’t think many ports in the world have seen such a large jump,” Lee said.

Port Klang, which comprises Westports and Northport, recorded a 21 per cent rise in container volume in 2010, to 8.9 million TEUs.

Malaysian ports handled 16.6 per cent more containers in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period in 2009, reflecting a recovery in both domestic and transhipment cargo.

Container traffic at the 11 major ports rose to 15.3 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) from 13.1 million in the periods reviewed.

In a statement, Transport Minister Kong Cho Ha said transhipment traffic was up 17 per cent. Transhipment cargo is that which arrives in the country and is transferred to another ship before continuing to its final destination.

Export containers showed a 17.6 per cent increase, while import traffic rose 14.1 per cent.

Port Klang, comprising Northport and Westports, solidified its position as the busiest container port in the country, with nearly half or 48.5 per cent share of the total number of containers handled by all Malaysian ports.

Its container throughput rose 24.8 per cent in the January-October 2010 period compared with the same period in 2009.

It moved 7.43 million TEUs against 5.95 million TEUs before.

More than half or 61.7 per cent of Port Klang’s container volume was from Westports, which generated 4.58 million TEUs. Northport accounted for the remaining 38.3 per cent or 2.85 million 20-foot equivalent units.

The Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Johor continued to be the second largest container port, handling 35.2 per cent of the country’s total throughput in the period.

Its container throughput rose 8.8 per cent to 5.38 million TEUs against 4.95 million TEUs before.

Kong said since container throughput in every Malaysia’s port was growing, his ministry was confident that the total throughput will reach 18.4 million TEUs by year-end.

Earlier this year, the total container throughput of Malaysian ports was projected to be 17.7 million TEUs for 2010, but the figure was later revised upwards following the better-than-expected performance in the last few months.

The country’s ports handled 16 million TEUs in 2009.

THE Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) yesterday called on the government to expedite the setting up of the National Port Authority (NPA).

The purpose of the NPA would be to oversee and streamline the operations of all ports in the country.

The NPA could, among other things, help cut out unhealthy competition among ports by avoiding a duplication of services and facilities, said MTUC vice-president A. Balasubramaniam, who is also the secretary of the Union of Employees of Port Ancillary Services Suppliers.

He said the NPA could also assist in creating uniformity in the wages and terms and conditions of work for the 30,000 workers at the various ports. – Bernama

Plans are underway to increase the capacity of the newly-completed Sepanggar Container Port Terminal (SPTC) in order to meet growing demand.

According to Infrastructure Development Minister Datuk Seri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, ever since the container port was open for business, it has been recording an upward trend in performance.

Speaking after attending a briefing cum work visit to SPTC, Thursday, he said Sabah Port Sdn Bhd (SPSB) has been mulling over the expansion plan.

This is to further improve the port’s capacity to enable it to handle more containers coming into Sabah.

“The port has been recording a commendable increase in terms of operational performance and an expansion plan is necessary and something to look forward to,” he said.

This despite the port with a capacity of 500,000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) handling only about 200,000 TEUs last year as said by its Chief Operating Officer Mohd Sahid Nawab Khan.

Pairin said the privatisation of ports in Sabah has resulted in their management becoming more efficient as reflected by the steady increase of operational performance.

He said that positive performance displayed by the container port showed that it was heading in the right direction.

Explaining the expansion plan, he said it would be carried out based on projected future needs. “The plan would include increasing the size of the container yard and docking areas.”

Costing RM400 million over 22ha in Sepanggar opposite the Naval Base, the port commenced operations on June 9, 2007.

It will institute measures to reinforce its authority as port regulator

PORT KLANG: Port Klang Authority (PKA) has come out with four proactive initiatives to further boost the efficiency and businesses at terminals and its supporting industry.

Its new general manager Kee Lian Yong said PKA would institute necessary measures to reinforce its authority as a port regulator and play a positive role in safeguarding the interest of all players in the industry. “First is the registration of all necessary logistics players in Port Klang to ensure efficiency and cooperation.

“We will also have to continue monitoring the performance of the ports closely to ensure compliance on the efficiency and performance at the ports are maintained and at par with international standards.

“Next, all direct port activities and ancillary services within the port limit should be licensed where PKA has taken steps to license and regulate private jetty operators.

“So far, PKA has approved 20 private jetty operations based on the merit that they will contribute and complement trade growth here.

“Finally, PKA is enforcing enhanced security and safety within the port limit and pilotage district where it has ugraded the Vessel Traffic Management System which now includes the Automatic Identification System in line with the International Maritime Organisation’s safety of life at sea convention,” he told reporters at a briefing on PKA’s strategies for growth and improved services yesterday.

Kee added that Port Klang was also equipped with scanners at both Northport and Westports together with megaport initiatives with the US Customs.

Kee said PKA would also set out a strategic port master plan which would map out the direction of Port Klang for short- and long-term planning for the next 10 to 20 years.

The current port master plan expires next year.

He said the prospect of strengthening Port Klang’s competitiveness could be via better cooperation between the two terminals.

“Whilst healthy competition is encouraged, I believe there’s room for enhanced cooperation between the two that will lead to better services for port users, optimisation of port capacity and mutual long-term benefit for the industry as well as the nation,” he said.

PKA is the trade facilitator, regulator and landlord of the terminals in Port Klang.

To further enhance the port’s efficiency, Kee said PKA’s effort to deepen and widen the south entrance to Port Klang was 60% to 70% completed.

The dredging project will see a deeper south entrance of 16.5m from 15.5m previously, and width of 500m from 365m previously.

“The RM100mil project is set to be completed by December,” he said.

In terms of container volume, Kee said the volume in the second quarter of this year showed significant improvement of 7.8% quarter-on-quarter, reflecting signs of recovery going foward.

“But, the container throughput declined by 15.4% in the first six months this year against the same period last year.

“Hence, Port Klang’s full year volume is expected to contract by 10% this year against 7.9 million twenty-foot equivalent units in 2008.

“From the positive indications, we hope to fare better next year,” he said.

Additional initiatives according to Kee would include gearing the industry for the implementation of reduction of free storage period for import and export containers at the terminals to three days effective Jan 1. The free storage time at present is five days.

Kee said PKA would also step in to resolve issues in the industry such as depot gate charges and feeder incentive scheme.

On Port Klang Free Zone, Kee said PKA would announce its business turnaround plan in two months after securing approval from relevant stakeholders.

Kee, who is an accountant by profession with about 25 years of experience in the corporate world, took the helm of PKA two months ago replacing former general manager Lim Thean Shiang.

By SHARIDAN M. ALI

Malaysian ports handled 10 per cent more containers in the second quarter of the year compared to the first, reflecting a recovery in both domestic and transhipment cargo.

Container traffic at the 10 major ports rose to 3.79 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) from 3.44 million in the periods reviewed.

Transhipment traffic, comprising almost two-thirds of the total, was up 11 per cent to 2.48 million TEUs from 2.22 million. Transhipment cargo is that which arrives in the country and is transferred to another ship before continuing to its final destination.

Export containers showed a 10.2 per cent increase to 670,718 TEUs, while import traffic rose 4.4 per cent to 640,469 TEUs.

In the January-June period, however, container throughput fell 7.7 per cent to 7.24 million TEUs from the first half of last year. Cargo tonnage was down 11.6 per cent to 168,806 tonnes.

The Transport Ministry’s special maritime adviser, Datuk Captain Abdul Rahim Abd. Aziz, said the drop in first half container volume was in line with the performance of other ports in the Asean region, which saw 15-30 per cent declines.

“For instance, ports in the Philippines reported a decline in cargo volume of an average 20.6 per cent in the first half, while Vietnam’s port container throughput was down between 14 per cent and 30 per cent and Thailand, an average drop of 35 per cent,” he told Business Times in an interview.

“While container traffic seemed to have stabilised in the second quarter, port operators in Asean remain uncertain whether the market has hit bottom.

“At the recent Asean Ports Association (APA) working committee meeting in Kota Kinabalu, the most optimistic prediction of a recovery was from the middle of 2010,” said Abdul Rahim, who is also the APA working committee chairman.

To survive the current economic downturn, port operators have resorted to various cost-cutting strategies, including sending fewer employees overseas for trips or meetings and deferring purchases of new equipment, he added.

Port Klang, comprising Northport and Westports, solidified its position as the largest container port in the country.

Its container throughput rose 7.8 per cent in the second quarter compared to the first three months. It moved 1.73 million TEUs against 1.6 million before.

Transhipment volume was 996,508 TEUs, up 4.6 per cent from the first three months, and 57.7 per cent of Port Klang’s total throughput.

The Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) in Johor continued to be the second largest container port, handling 1.47 million TEUs in the second quarter.

It recorded 17.6 per cent growth from 1.25 million TEUs in the first quarter, with 94.4 per cent of all volume coming from transhipment.

Bintulu Port saw 16 per cent growth to 57,895 TEUs from 49,875 in the first quarter.

Johor Port handled 216,744 TEUs in the second quarter, up 7.3 per cent from 201,915 in the first, thanks to the increase in transhipment and export cargo.

Penang Port was the only port to record a decline in the quarters reviewed, down 24.2 per cent to 151,165 TEUs from 199,391.

By : Kang Siew Li