Although the world is going through some tough time now, Malaysia still has a lot of room to grow and we are still very competitive in the world.

Due to the recent rising costs, we are looking at alternative sources of energy to operate our equipment. We plan to look at electrification for some of our equipment or maybe switch to gas.

In fact, we are trying to implement a "green port". The strategies we are pursuing reinforce the "green" strategies because electrification and gas are more environmental friendly.

Going on, there will be a challenge for us to compete with many other bigger port players as we are relatively small in the industry. So, we need to find more innovative ways to race with them.

Now, we have a good training system, good policies and know-how on how to run a container terminal. I think these are our key strengths for moving forward.

Besides, we have implemented IT to improve our productivity, including the introduction of our e-Terminal portal and the enterprise resource planning system.

The other challenge is to train the right people to manage the growing business as not many people that join us have experience in this industry.

Currently, we have 3,000 employees and will probably reach about 3,500 by 2010 or 5,000 by 2015.

Now we have a young working team about my age (he is 32), which is highly innovative, creative and always thinking of new ways to move ahead. All the team members have at least five to 10 years' experience in the shipping industry.

Going forward, the company is planning to expand abroad. We are constantly looking out for opportunities overseas.


Ruben Emir Gnanalingam
(Executive Director Westports)
The Star, 31.08.2008