Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on August 20, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Transport Minister Anthony Loke has said his ministry is looking at reducing bureaucracy to make Malaysian ports more competitive as transhipment hubs in the region.

Loke said the ministry has an important role to facilitate further private investments into local ports for multinational corporations to set up their regional distribution centres in Malaysia.

As such, he said the ministry has initiated engagements with potential foreign investors to understand their needs in order to facilitate their investments into Malaysia as much as possible.

“The ministry of transport (MoT) has identified many issues that we need to deal with, particularly in terms of regulations, [such as] cutting down red tape.

“We are currently reviewing the ongoing processes to make our ports more competitive, and I would be making further announcements in the next couple of weeks,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the 4th Annual China-Malaysia Port Alliance (CMPA) Meeting yesterday.

“I think the problem with the investors is not so much with the incentives; they are happy with the incentives. I think a lot of factors are very positive for them but sometimes it is because of the red tape and bureaucracy that have not attracted them to come here.

Loke said the ministry is focusing on attracting car manufacturing firms to set up distribution hubs in Malaysia in order to increase volume at local ports.

“This is a good business that Malaysia is very interested in because we have the availability in terms of land. The moment we turn our available land near the ports into free zones, it will be attractive for foreign companies which will enhance the volume in our ports, and that will make more shipping lines come into Malaysia,” he said.

Loke said the ministry is targeting a 12% year-on-year growth in the number of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) handled in Port Klang for 2019.

In the first six months of the year, Port Klang, through its two ports, recorded 6.6 million TEUs, compared with 4.9 million TEUs for the same period last year, representing a 35% growth.

Loke said Port Klang experienced smaller growth in early 2018 partly due to the rationalisation of shipping industries.

“A lot of shipping companies moved to their other hubs but this year we have seen the return of the growth and we are looking for double-digit growth in the handling of TEUs in Port Klang this year,” he said.

“For Port Klang, we are working hard to maintain all the major shipping lines who are operating in Port Klang to stay here and to at least retain Port Klang as a [secondary] hub,” he added.

The CMPA was established in 2015 with members comprising 13 major ports in China and nine major Malaysian ports. At this year’s meeting, the scope of the discussion covers joint cooperation in the areas of e-port community exchange platform, human resource training and development, best practices in port and logistics, mutual promotion efforts, port terminal investment, operations and development.

Other areas of cooperation include port studies, training and apprenticeship, exchange of information, technical assistance and traffic development and promotion of the respective member ports.

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