KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 — Westports Holdings Bhd (Westports) today became the only terminal in Malaysia to handle 10 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers in a calendar year.
The 10 millionth TEU threshold was attained after the company’s container throughput increased by approximately 14 per cent to 9.89 million TEUs in the 11 months between January and November 2019, said Westports in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.
On a cumulative basis over the last 23 years since the container operations commenced in 1996, Westports handled more than 112 million TEUs of containers.
Westports said the 10,000,000th container was loaded on a vessel which plies on the WAX4 Asia-West Africa service, at 10.18 am today.
“Vessels on this service make their port of call at Westports and is en route to the Far East countries, including China,” it said.
It said strong support from the Port Klang Authority (PKA) and Ministry of Transport Malaysia through proactive policies and high-level marketing in 2019 had also contributed to Westports and Port Klang’s achievement of strong growth thus far in 2019.
PKA had forecasted that its container terminals combined, which included Westports, could handle 13.25 million TEUs this year and thus maintain its ranking in the World Container League for 2019.
With greater challenges expected in 2020, PKA said its terminals, including Westports, would work continuously towards providing better facilities and services to meet customers and stakeholders’ expectations.
The statutory corporation and regulator highlighted that such efforts would contribute towards eventually turning Malaysia’s principal port, Port Klang, into a regional maritime centre and cargo logistics hub. — Bernama
