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Buoyed by its sterling financial
performance and expanding cargo base, Sabah Port
is confident of making deeper market outreach
and wider acceptance of its facilities and
services by port users with its recent
significant gains in productivity in ship and
cargo handling and expansion of its capacity.
“With notable improvements in shipside and
landside operations in particular, Kota Kinabalu
Port, we have won over the confidence of
shippers which is crucial to our ambition to
promote ourselves as the Gateway port serving
the fast-expanding economic region beyond
Sabah,” said Datuk Haji Abu Bakar Haji Abas,
group managing director of Suria Capital Bhd.
Abu Bakar, who is also the managing director of
Sabah Ports Sdn Bhd., a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Suria Capital said the recent confidence of
shippers and port users had boosted the group’s
faith in its decision to undertake one of the
biggest port expansions this state has ever
witnessed.
To fund this expansion, last week Sabah Ports
Sdn Bhd raised RM150 million Islamic Securities
from a consortium of banks.
The port operating company which reported a
sizeable profit of RM66.8 million on the back of
RM158 million turnover recorded last year, has,
since it took over seven ports in the state
under a privatization agreement in 2004, spent
about RM600 million, including RM400 million of
which on the development of Sepangar Bay
Container Terminal.
Under the terms of privatization the company is
committed to investing in RM1.4 billion over the
30-year period.
The improvement in cargo and ship handling was
duly acknowledged by container shipping lines
calling Kota Kinabalu Port when it withdrew the
contentious congestion surcharge, said Abu Bakar
at the sideline after the bond signing ceremony
in Kota Kinabalu.
Shippers, especially the Sabah Manufacturers
Federation, commended recently the productivity
improvements achieved by Sabah Port Sdn Bhd and
welcomed the initiatives of the shipping lines
to withdraw the congestion surcharge on Kota
Kinabalu port.
“We are happy the shipping lines withdrew the
congestion surcharge in the face the
productivity improvements that we have
recorded,” said Abu Bakar.
Speaking at the bond signing ceremony in Kota
Kinabalu, the chairman of Sabah Ports Sdn Bhd,
Tan Sri Ibrahim Menudin said in view of the
large financial commitment undertaken by the
port operating company to develop ports in the
state, the Federal government should review its
position in designating Bintulu Port In Sarawak
as a regional load centre.
He urged the Federal government to let free
competition prevail and allow market forces to
determine the evolution of a load centre in East
Malaysia based on competitiveness and
efficiency.
Supporting the call, the State Minister for
Infrastructure Datuk Ramond Tan said Sabah State
Government has made representation to the
Federal Government against its move to designate
Bintulu Port in Sarawak as a regional load
centre for East Malaysia as it could undermine
its efforts to develop ports in the state.
“We have made our position known to the Prime
Minister during his visit to the state last
December and also written to the Ministry of
Transport on why Bintulu Port should not be
designated as load centre and that the free
market and commercial forces should be allowed
to determine the evolution of a hub port in this
region,” he said in Kota Kinabalu after
witnessing the bond signing ceremony..
Raymond Tan said the stand taken by the Federal
government in the Industrial Master Plan
(2006-2020) which calls for the designation of
Bintulu Port as a regional load centre would be
unhelpful to the recent port investment
initiatives in the state.
He said the state government would pursue the
matter to ensure that ports in the state are not
marginalized and investments in the Sepangar Bay
Container Terminal are not jeopardized.
The Minister said commissioning of RM400
million-Sepagar Bay Container Terminal later
this year would herald a new chapter in the
development of the port industry in Sabah and is
setting the scene for an expanded role of the
gateway port in the regional ports system,
especially in the BIMP-EAGA region.
The new terminal when fully equipped will have
an installed capacity to handled 500,000 TEUs
per annum, almost twice the volume of traffic
totaling 230,000 TEUs handled last year.
The new container terminal will able to
accommodate a larger number of bigger ships, up
to 3,500 TEU ships, a development which has
already attracted some mainline operators and
shipping lines from East Asia.
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