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There is a need for the government to look into incentives to encourage the growth of distributive trade Port Klang.
By focusing on the development distributive trade at international procurement centres (IPCs), the President of Association of Forwarding Agents Port Klang, Tan Ah Beng said more shipping services would be attracted to call Port Klang.
"This can be done effectively, if the government encourages LCL transhipment traffic rather than just concentrating on FCL transhipment traffic," said, Tan.
"Reflecting the opportunities in the importance of the LCL transhipment traffic, we have submitted a proposal to the Port Klang Authority to further encourage value-adding and multi-destination cargo consolidation activities at Port Klang," he added.
Tan said encouraging LCL transhipment at Port Klang actually creates more economic activities in the transport supply chain than the transhipment of FCL traffic.
Tan said the terminal operators at Port Klang - Northport and Westport - should liberalise or create a free movement on containers between both container-operating terminals in Port Klang.
He said the inter-terminal transfer charges should not be imposed for LCL transhipment.
"In addition, the inter-terminal transfers by be carried out within a day instead of the present practise by rail which requires 48 hours advanced notice," stressed Tan.
The move to encourage the development of international procurement centers and distribution activities forms an integral part of the government's policy to stem the outflow of foreign exchange payments.
It is also seen that the role of the ports in the national economy would be further strengthened through the linkages created by the generation of cargo.
This is why the International Trade and Industry Ministry is actively encouraging the setting up of international procurement centers to foster distribution activities especially at ports said Tan
In fact to further enhance the role of distribution activities the government has allowed minor manufacturing activities to be carried out at the distriparks in the ports. This is in addition to break-bulking, sorting/grading, packing/repacking, labelling and packaging activities in the free Zones.
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