Sidek rides the wave

Skeptics were aplenty when development of Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas – the largest port infrastructure project in the country – took off the drawing board in 1997. To make matters worse the country and the region were hit by the Asian financial crisis raising serious questions over the prospects and viability of the container port with an initial price tag of more than RM3 billion.

What even drew more skeptics was that a port from literally nowhere was being developed next to the world’s largest container port to lay challenge to the invincibility of Singapore.

But to top it all the new port was put in charge of an inexperienced former government official to whom not just running a port was a new but the whole corporate world was a strange one.

The ingredients of failure were overwhelming.

“I still recall one analysts who described the project as fatally flawed,” said the chief executive officer of PTP Mohd Sidek Shaik Osman who joined the new port operating company after relinquishing a senior post in the Prime Minister’s department.

Many would have been troubled by such negative vibes, cynics  and skepticism that surrounded PTP as well of him, but Sidek, who wasn’t even the first choice to head the new port, always beamed with confidence. 

He was innocuous about the task before him. Many chided him for that. Perhaps it was his inexperience.

But Sidek, 50, who served the Ministry of International Trade and Industry before heading the port unit in the Ministry of Transport for eight years, cleverly used his inexperience to his advantage. Instead of telling clients what he had to sell he asked them what they wanted to buy from him.

“We went around asking shipping lines to tell us what you want. What kind of port do you need?,” said Sidek of the marketing outing and outreaches that took him to capitals of shipping companies.

“Of course many shut the door on our face. Some even returned the company brochures we presented to them. Others said we will call you – do call us,” he recalled with some amusement the startled face of some of the captains of shipping lines when the mouthful “Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas” was mentioned. Tanjung what? Some loading jetty for timber off one 13,000 the Indonesia islands?

“To be fair there were world class shipping lines who did not want to be bothered by some minnow from backwaters of Malaysia,” said Sidek who for the first time came in contact with realities of the shipping world.

Sidek said the approach to shipping lines – especially the big ones – by offering berth appropriation schemes or even leasing terminals and allowing the lines to operate the facility was novel scheme to this part of the world.

“The concept offered shipping lines with large number of sailings weekly and the need to move large number of transshipment containers expeditiously to ensure good connectivity greater flexibility and better control over their operation,” he added.

It was here that shipping lines with specific requirements were targeted. Invariably Maersk-Sealand, the largest liner operator in the world that was Singapore’s number one client was offered a deal that it could not refuse.

The Danish line was offered 30 per cent stake in PTP as well as an arrangement to jointly manage the terminal. The rest was history.

Sending shock waves in the shipping industry in October 2000, Maesk announced that it was pulling out of Singapore – and the joke was now on Singapore.

Singapore which had dismissed PTP as harebrained by declaring “any one can build a such a large port but we like to see how they’d manage it” when the new Malaysian port was taking shape was literally speechless. It refused to comment on Maersk withdrawal but merely stating any one was free to come and go.

Yet Singapore, that some years ago toyed with the idea of discriminating shipping lines that called Malaysian ports, saw none coming its way and in fact lost its second most important customer – Evergreen Line.

The winning of the Taiwanese line has not only silenced critics but has converted many as the lemming-like shipping lines are now queuing up at the gates of PTP that has emerged as the world’s fastest-growing container port.

However, like the good-old faceless government servant, Sidek, who holds a masters degree from the World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden, shies away from taking the credit of having built the world’s fastest-growing port against all the odds.

Said Sidek, who held the post of deputy director general in the prime minister’s department overseeing maritime policy development, the fact that PTP was a green-field port itself was itself a major advantage.

“It did not inherit any port culture and it offered a highly and a total integrated IT platform in all areas of activity. Besides, being next to Singapore turned out to the biggest advantage,” he declared.

Sidek, who completes five year term with PTP, is confident PTP could now be a run-away success.

“You can say the berth is now wide open for other lines to take a look at PTP seriously than they have ever done before. The entry of Evergreen serves to re-affirm our capability and competence to meet the demands of world class shipping lines,” he said.

He agreed with the entry of Evergreen, the port has now shed the “Maersk” image, a development which is not entirely inconsistent with the Danish line’s own attempt to move away from the image with the creation of APM Terminals Ltd to focus its worldwide port operation as a separate profit center.

Sidek stressed that the winning over of Evergreen was not a stroke of luck nor a case of PTP offering rates lower than Singapore that has won world’s leading shipping lines.

“I am sure if it was only a question of rates, lines would be better off looking ports in neighbouring countries which are cheaper than PTP,” he said, adding rates at other Malaysian and Indonesian ports are much cheaper.

 “World class shipping lines which have been used to world class standards and service levels at one of the world’s top ports in Singapore cannot afford to compromise for anything less even if rates are lower by 50 per cent,” he said.

Having built a world-class port PTP, Sidek, like PTP is shifting into high gears, ready to go places.