ASIA

Jurong to expand at home and abroad

21 years ago

Jurong is to expand its activities in Indonesia, Vietnam and China. At the same time, given a 54% increase in traffic in the first two quarters of 2005 to 444,000TEUs, plans are also being hatched to expand facilities at its home base. Five new quayside gantry cranes are to be acquired, of which four will replace existing equipment. Another container berth will also be expanded while the conventional berth is to be upgraded. Last year Jurong handed 711,000TEUs as well as 9.6m tons of bulk and general cargo.

The Government’s objectives were to establish the commercial feasibility of building an additional port; identify ways of addressing labour in any future concession; assess the impact Iraqi trade wouldhave within the next decade and would this develop into at least two million TEU’s per annum; identify the best method to promote private investment in the new port; and stimulate competition to improve existing port operations.

However, this additional investment aims at improving productivity, rather than capacity per se, since the port’s 1.4m TEU capacity has not yet been reached.