Seventy percent of Malaysia’s trade
in manufactured goods is carried by containers and the use of containerized
shipping has increased tremendously. During the 1990s, total container
movements increased at least nearly 10 percent a year, with the fastest growth occurring
in the ports of Malaysia.
The
rapid growth in container usage represents both a revolution in maritime
technology and a significant logistics challenge to economies in the region. Though
container ports in the region are becoming more efficient in handling
containers Malaysia cannot keep pace with the rapidly growing demand for berth
and storage space. While the capacity of the container fleet on the South East
Asia – East Asia routes increased at more than 20 percent a year between 1980
and 2000, the capacity of container berths to handle those ships increased at
less than 8 percent a year.
Countries in the region, including Malaysia,
responded to the shortage by adding new berths, converting general cargo berths
to container handling and developing new ports. Expanded capacity requires
greater land area for use in container storage and storage yards to handle the
capacity still cannot cope with the decreasing amount of space available both
at the ports and depots. Not to mention the means of transporting the containers
across land.
There is limited scope for further
reducing costs by increasing vessel size and the next development is likely to
be more direct services from what are now feeder ports. With higher volumes and
more efficient smaller vessels, this could overcome the cost penalty of
transfers in the hub ports. The start of this trend can already be seen in the
slower growth rates of two regional mega ports in this region: Port Klang and
Port of Singapore.
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