SINGAPORE may still be the undisputed hub port for Southeast Asia, but it could see some competition from a new rival in the coming years.
    In recent years we have seen remarkable growth at the neighbouring port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) in Malaysia, and now Indonesia is looking to develop a new deep-water container port at Tanjung Sauh—a tiny outcrop of islands and marshes lying between Batam and Bintan.
    News reports say that Indonesia is not in any mood to fritter away time and resources. The first excavators will begin digging up earth early next year and the port will be ready by 2015, which is just two years after work begins.
    Depending on which private operator runs the port or what kind of model is adopted one thing however, is certain: the erstwhile port supremo Singapore will have yet another port to compete with that could potentially take some business away.
    Surely no one would argue that Singapore is in danger of losing its role as the leading hub port for the region for at least the foreseeable future, but as we have seen with PTP, carriers could certainly opt to divert some Singapore-bound services to the new Indonesian port when it is up and running. 
    "They (meaning the Indonesians) may probably be taking a leaf out from the Port of Tanjung Pelepas”, Nazery Khalid, a maritime academic from the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) told The Container Shipping Manager in a recent interview.
    He added that PTP had, to some degree, demolished the “inferiority complex” of regional Southeast Asian ports “because it showed to the Indonesians that if they [PTP] can do it [challenge Singapore] the rest can do so too”. 
    With the mushrooming of special economic trade zones in Batam where the new deepwater port will incidentally be located, the choice of Tanjung Sauh can only perhaps be described as a ‘logical inevitability’.
    But it is not just Tanjung Sauh that Southeast Asian port operators have to pay attention to. Financial assistance from Indonesia’s leading bank, Bank Mandiri, is also powering up a series of brand new ports in Kalibaru, Cilamaya and Marunda—not forgetting an already on-going project with Sabang in Aceh province.

(source:BSAA)