Muara Port Sees Startling Increase In Shipment Volume
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Muara - Official records of shipment volume going through Brunei Darussalam's Muara Port for the year 2004 which showed a startling increase of a full quarter to just over 100,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from the previous year, has caused other ports in the region reeling for an answer.

Attributed largely to a tripling of transhipment volume, the available figures send alarm bells to competitors of Muara Port in the region. Such developments have been of a special concern to some ports in the region which are positioning themselves to be subregional transhipment harbours.

Some regional port managers have been tasked to look into the capacity in cargo

handling equipment and related infrastructure in order to be more competitive with Muara Port.

One measure being taken by other ports in the region was to reduce the waiting time for berth for non-regular container vessels.

Another initiative was to cut the waiting time of vessels to be berthed for those on regular calls.

Other ports had openly stated that they cannot beat the cheaper transhipment charges at Muara Port. They have to maintain their current rates otherwise it would not be profitable at all, some ports stated.

Muara Port had registered a triple jump in transhipment container volume, mainly due to the long waiting time to transfer the goods to coastal feeder shipping services in other ports. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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