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Much needs to be done to
increase the competitiveness of Malaysian ports
which have emerged as a strategic component in
facilitating the country’s growing trade, said
Maritime Institute of Malaysia research fellow
Nazery Khalid.
He said Malaysia’s economy has felt the impact
of the phenomenal growth in global trade in
recent years due to its status as a major
trading nation.
“This in turn has spurred investments in and
development of various trade and transport
infrastructures, including ports and the
shipping sector in Malaysia.
“The tremendous growth of ports and shipping
activities in Malaysia over the years underlines
the value of the maritime sector to the
country's economic well-being and the importance
of the sea to its people.
“The country's ports are therefore crucial to
its economic prosperity,” he said at the Ports
and Logistics Conference on the perspectives and
prospects of Malaysian ports in Manila recently.
Reflecting growing trade, which breached the
RM1tril mark in 2006, is an equally impressive
growth in the container throughput of Malaysian
seaports.
“As a testimony to the bullishness of the
country's economic planners towards the
potential growth of local ports, a national
target throughput of 36 million TEU (twenty-foot
containers) has been set in the Third Industrial
Master Plan for Malaysian ports to achieve,
triple their current handling capacity,” Nazery
said.
Malaysian ports handled a total container
throughput of 13.6 million TEU in 2006.
Nazery added that the nation’s ports have
evolved beyond being merely places where ships
loaded and unloaded cargo and passengers.
“They have assumed a critical role in the
overall pattern of trade and transport,
providing a link between the shipping service
and the inland transport system,” he said.
Realising the need to meet the challenge of
matching the transport sector’s efficiency with
a rapidly growing industrialised economy,
Malaysia has put in place an infrastructure
development plan focusing on inter-connectivity
among various transport modes.
“This is an acknowledgement of the need to come
up with an integrated, comprehensive approach to
link the supply chain in an efficient, seamless
multimodal interface,” he said.
Malaysia’s major container ports act as crucial
points of interface with other transport modes
such as road, rail, river and air.
“Niche ports have been established with Port
Klang as the national load centre and PTP as the
southern transshipment hub, while Bintulu Port
has emerged as the world’s largest single-unit
LNG facility,” Nazery said.
Although Malaysia has done well to develop its
maritime infrastructure and to put itself on the
world map of maritime nations, it needs to
increase its competitiveness as a maritime
nation.
“Malaysia enjoys the benefit of its maritime
features, which it has harnessed well. It also
has a supportive Government which is aware of
the importance of the maritime sector in
contributing to the nation’s economic
prosperity.
“It has also done well to lay down the
infrastructure – some of which can stand heads
and shoulders with the world’s best – and the
institutional framework to facilitate its
burgeoning maritime trade,” Nazery said.
He added that for Malaysia to be ranked as a
truly competitive maritime nation, it needed to
step up efforts to develop its human capital and
infrastructure in the maritime sector.
It also needed to enlarge the scope of its
maritime activities to move up the maritime
value chain.
Among the maritime ancillary services that could
be further developed include ship financing,
shipbroking, shipbuilding and repairing, marine
insurance and legal services –essentials for any
nation aspiring to become a truly competitive
maritime player.
Nazery stressed that competition from regional
countries in certain maritime activities was
also getting stiffer.
“In shipbuilding, for example, intense
competition comes not only from established
market leaders such as South Korea and Japan but
aspiring players like China which enjoy
economies of scale and lower labour cost
structure.
“In the port sector, the competition to attract
shipping lines comes from Singapore, a premiere
container port, and even from up and coming
ports in China, Vietnam and Thailand”, he
pointed out.
Other nations with growing maritime ambitions
are also beefing up their infrastructure and
manpower to capitalise on the opportunities
arising from the growing volume of maritime
trade in the region and demand for shipping and
maritime ancillary services.
“Hence, Malaysia should not remain complacent
with its achievements and must continuously hone
its competitiveness to thrive in the keenly
competitive maritime sector,” Nazery stressed.
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