Port Klang in Malaysia has handled 12.69 million TEU in January-November period, close to the volume it handled in the entire last year totaling 13.24 million TEU.
The port authority expects that by the end of the year the total handling will reach 13.8 million TEU in 2021, in line with the pre-pandemic growth trend, when Port Klang had handled 13.6 million TEU in 2019.
The severe impacts of the pandemic had lowered container throughput of the seaport, the largest port of the country.
Port Klang will have to enhance its box handling capacity by 1.5 million TEU every year to compete with its neighboring harbours like Port of Singapore which is expanding its capacity every year to a significant level, said Malaysian Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ir. Dr. Wee Ka Siong.
The Port Authority of Singapore this week completed the first phase of its new gateway Tuas Port and announced that two of its berths will start handling containers by the end of this year. Once goes into operation after full completion, the port will add 20 million TEU capacity.
The Malaysian minister said his country is working on setting up another seaport in Carey Island for which the ministry has already conducted a feasibility study two years back.
Meantime, the French carrier CMA CGM this week temporarily suspended all new bookings from Malaysia and Brunei ports towards Chittagong Port.
The suspension is for a couple of weeks as the vessel deployed in the route needs to go for some repairing. Container News asked CMA CGM for a comment about the possible impacts of the bookings suspension on Chittagong-Malaysia-Chittagong route but did not receive a response at the time of writing.
Sharar Nayel
Bangladesh Correspondent
