|
Keeping pace with developments in the U.S. and Canada, Asian ports are developing new marine container terminals as well as expanding existing facilities. China, South Korea and Southeast Asia are currently seeing the most investment in this sphere, although India and Pakistan also have new projects underway.
China
In April, Singapore's well-known PSA Corp. signed a joint-venture agreement with China's Guangzhou Harbor Bureau (GHB) for the development and operation of three container berths at the Port of Guangzhou.
Guangzhou has been expanding its infrastructure rapidly because it handles a large amount of traffic generated by the the City of Guangzhou as well as the Pearl River Delta region.
Last year, the port moved over 1.45 million TEUs and may break the 2 million TEU figure this year.
For its part, PSA now has three major container terminal operations in China, including contracts at Dalian and Fuzhou as well as the recently won Guangzhou concession.
Another outside port operator making extensive investment in China is Hong Kong's Hutchison Group, which has applied to take a 49 percent interest in container terminal operations at Beilun.
There has been concern within China that Hutchison, headquartered in the United Kingdom, has grown too quickly in China, but Hu Xijie, China's deputy minister of communications, said foreign investment is still "welcomed." Even Taiwan's Evergreen Marine has been invited to invest in the development of facilities at the Port of Haicang (Xiamen), which lies across the Formosa Strait from Taiwan. This development is expected to be accomplished through a joint venture consisting of Evergreen and the Xiamen International Container Terminal Company.
Nevertheless, China now seems to be turning more towards local firms for port management as they gain operating expertise and more domestic financing becomes available.
The China Shipping Group (CSG), now extensively involved in the trans-Pacific trades, will expand into terminal operations with the establishment of the China Terminal Development Company, headquartered in Shanghai.
According to Li Keling, CSG general manager, the new company's first move will be to invest in and manage facilities used by CSG in China. After that, it will begin moving into global operations and offering its services to third parties. This will include new terminal development in North America, where CSG is currently negotiating for new facilities with the Port of Los Angeles, as well as in Europe and Southeast Asia.
China's biggest terminal development project remains the massive Yangshan Port being developed near Shanghai. The project has been approved by China's State Council and work is expected to begin shortly on the construction of five deepwater berths to serve post-Panamax container vessels.
The new port, to be built on a series of offshore islands, is to be connected to Shanghai by a 32-kilometer-long bridge. This is expected to push first-phase development costs to nearly $1.5 billion. However, Chinese port engineers feel at least fifty berths can be built at the Yangshan site, which would make it the world's largest container complex, with an annual throughput capacity of over 15 million TEUs.
Korea
In South Korea, now connected to Chinese ports by a growing number of container feeder and ro-ro ferry operations, the local ministry of maritime affairs is planning six new container ports, all to be built with the help of outside investment.
According to the Korean Maritime Institute, considerable Chinese trans-shipment traffic is being handled through South Korea because of shallow water at Shanghai. This traffic is said to be largely responsible for a seven percent increase in container movements through South Korean ports in the first quarter, with nearly 2.3 million TEUs handled.
According to South Korean government figures, transshipment traffic alone in the quarter increased by 30 percent, to over 700,000 TEUs.
Most of this tonnage is being moved through the Port of Busan, which handled more than 7.5 million TEUs last year, making it the world's third-busiest container port.
Hong Kong's Hutchison has also been busy in South Korea and has joined with the locally-based Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine to bid on the construction and operation of seven container berths at the Port of Kwangyang, being developed close to Busan City. Kwangyang has been handling around 60,000 TEUs per month through its existing berths, some 9,000 TEUs of which move on to China.
Another Korea harbor to be expanded is Mokpo, traditionally a gateway for imports but now to be enlarged for the handling of exports, principally motor vehicles.
Southeast Asia
In Southeast Asia, Malaysia's new port of Tanjung Pelepas continues to grow after taking Maersk Sealand from Singapore last year.
The Malaysian port has stepped up its efforts to gain additional traffic, and has guaranteed regional shippers a minimum 16-day transit time for cargo moving to both the U.S. West Coast and Europe. It has also been investing heavily in new handling equipment and has raised its container crane productivity from 23 to nearly 30 gross moves per hour.
Tanjung Pelepas is expecting to benefit from the Malaysian government's recent decision to invest nearly $5.5 billion in transportation infrastructure over the next half decade to cushion the local economy against any possible repercussions of a world economic slow-down. The investment is expected to help Tanjung Pelepas, as well as Malaysia's more northerly gateway of Port Klang, to wean more transshipment traffic away from Singapore.
However, not all carriers are ready to make the shift. In recent months, APL, the container shipping arm of Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines, decided to drop regular calls at Tanjung Pelepas on its West Asia Express (WAX) service. Instead, only occasional calls will now be made to reposition empty containers. APL said there was not enough local demand to continue a regular service through Tanjung Pelepas.
India, Pakistan & Sri Lanka
Although not yet ranked with the importance of Asian ports to Pacific trade, the ports of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are also being prepared for growth. Sri Lanka's Port of Colombo is serving as a major transshipment point in the Indian Ocean for all four countries but regional ports are growing quickly.
In India, Australia's P&O Ports, which operates container facilities at Colombo, has been developing the Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port near Mumbai. The Australian-based firm, which also has operations at New Orleans and New York, has been bidding on the development of a new container terminal at Vallarpadam, in southern India, but is being opposed by some government officials who feel it may be monopolizing port operations in the country. Fear of potential outside control has also delayed development of new port facilities at Krishnapatnam, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, and at Kandla, in Gujarat. Krishnapatnam had been targeted as the site of six new deepwater berths while Kandla would be expanded by four berths. However, the $310 million required to develop Krishnapatnam has not yet been found and investment is still lacking at Kandla, which was India's busiest port until heavily damaged by an earthquake at the start of the year.
Since then, annual cargo throughput at Kandla has fallen from over 46 million metric tons to under 37 million tons, allowing the ports of Visakhapatnanam and Chennai to move into No. 1 and No. 2 positions, leaving Kandla ranked at No. 3.
In neighboring Pakistan, the federal government has revived plans to build a major new port at Gwadar, in the extreme western section of the country, which would operate as a transshipment base for cargo moving to and from Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. This project, which would include the construction of three deepwater berths as well as a new highway linking the port to Karachi, is estimated to cost $230 million.
Javed Ashraf Qazi, Pakistan's communications minister, said outside financing is being sought for the project, and China has expressed some interest.
Next month: Pacific Rim ports part II - Australia, New Zealand and the Russian Far East
|