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A smooth flowing supply chain
is critical to facilitate the running of a
nation’s trade.
Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) research
fellow Nazery Khalid said a seamless supply
chain was vital especially for a country such as
Malaysia whose economy was trade-dependent.
“To boost international trade and attract
investments, Malaysia needs to have a smooth
supply chain trade to provide adequate and
efficient transportation infrastructure.
“This will also help to enhance its competitive
advantage,” he said at the Maritime, Ports,
Shipping and Cargo Integrity Conference
recently.
A supply chain, logistics network or supply
network is a system of organisations, people,
activities, information and resources involved
in moving a product or service from supplier to
customer.
Nazery said it was imperative for the country to
have a robust and efficient logistics network to
support integration across the entire supply
chain.
“A strong logistics sector can contribute
towards creating an efficient trade environment
that promotes connectivity and integration
across transport modes to handle huge trade
volumes,” he said.
Malaysia’s emergence as one of the world’s top
20 trading nations demanded serious thought on
putting in place a multimodal transport
framework to facilitate its growing
international trade volume.
“For the nation to fully exploit the
opportunities in international trade and enhance
its competitive advantage to handle more trade,
Malaysia must look beyond existing unimodal
transport regimes and focus on developing a
single, unified transport system that transcends
the various modes,” Nazery said.
He said the role of an efficient transport
system had been instrumental in facilitating the
nation’s trade and economic growth.
“Without such a system, Malaysia’s trade would
not have exceeded RM1 trilion last year and the
Third Industrial Master Plan would not have set
the bold target of 36 million TEUs for our ports
to achieve by 2015,” he added.
He said while Malaysia already had excellent
maritime infrastructure, more could be done to
further integrate the maritime transport sector
with other transport modes.
“A seamless transport network as provided for in
a multimodal environment could enhance the
efficiency of Malaysia’s transport system.
“This will subsequently lead to the handling of
more cargo, faster delivery with lower cost,
which can only be good for the nation’s
competitive advantage,” he said.
He pointed out that for Malaysia’s
trade-dependent economy, the pressure to
maintain and increase its trade competitiveness
in an increasingly competitive world was
becoming greater.
“However, such a lofty objective can be hindered
by an inefficient production system resulting
from the absence of an efficient supply chain
and transportation system,” he said.
On securing the maritime supply chain from
various threats, Nazery said the importance of
ports as a pivotal component of global trade has
put the issue of securing the integrity of
ports, shipping and cargo under intense
scrutiny.
“Modern day ports have assumed the role of trade
facilitators through which much of the world’s
cargo of various types and of enormous volume
and value pass.
“Hence, securing the integrity of ports and its
related components is rightly a matter of
international concern as growth of global trade
depends heavily on the smooth running of ports
and the unimpeded flow of shipping and cargo,”
he said.
Growing global trade volume would demand that
the trade supply chain run efficiently and
smoothly to facilitate the delivery of goods in
greater volume, to more people, at lower cost,
to farther destinations and in a shorter time.
“The international nature of maritime transport
and trade is such that without efficient ports,
the smooth running of the supply chain would be
disrupted and global trade would be adversely
affected.
“A single security scare at one major hub port
may cause inconvenience to its users and affect
its smooth running, which could in turn snowball
into a bigger problem affecting international
trade,” Nazery said.
While acknowledging the need for security
measures to protect the integrity of the
maritime supply chain, he cautioned against a
“security overkill” that would choke the flow of
the supply chain and form bottlenecks along it.
“Security measures introduced must take into
cognisance the nature of maritime trade and
operations, business imperatives and the
resources and limitations of those affected.
Only then can the measures stand a chance of
gaining widespread support and be effective and
sustainable,” he said. |
