PORT Klang has held on to its 16th position in the latest top 30 league of container ports, while Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) has moved one rung up to the 18th.

Port Klang recorded 7.12 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) last year, from 6.33 million in 2006. PTP recorded 5.5 million TEUs.

Port Klang's position was owed much to Westports' improved throughput of 4.3 million TEUs, a growth of 18 per cent compared with 2006. Westports has set a target of five million TEUs for this year.

According to Containerisation International (CI), PTP saw its box volumes surge by 15 per cent last year. This was fuelled by strong demand growth in the Asia/Europe trade and its role as a transshipment hub.
Overall, China again dominated the global container trade last year, according to the CI March 2008 report. China's container ports ended up handling an estimated 21 per cent more traffic than they did in 2006.

Altogether, the top-30 container ports accounted for a throughput of 274 million TEUs, equivalent to 56 per cent of a CI-estimated world throughput of 484 million TEUs.

The NST, 17.03.2008