Don't expect overnight success for PMB

IT WON'T happen overnight, the operators picked for Brunei Darussalam's deep water container port Pulau Muara Besar (PMB) said of the sultanate's success in turning it into a competitive transshipment hub.

"When you look at a national development plan like this, you look at being competitive from 15 years onwards to 30 years," said Enrique K Razon Jr, chairman of International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI), the Philippines-based company chosen by the Brunei government to operate the port. "It is a very long-term issue."

Brunei is up for competition from existing ports in neighbouring states that have already established their presence in the region's trade lanes.

Among well-entrenched players is the Port of Singapore, which on average attracts some 140,000 vessel calls a year and serves 250 shipping lines connecting to 600 ports in 123 countries.

In an interview with The Brunei Times yesterday, Razon said the initial challenges for the port would be that everything has to run very efficiently and that the cost has to be beneficial.

"I think with the existing terminal already happening, it will be simply transferring everything there and having the technology in place," he said. Razon emphasised that the success of a project like this doesn't happen overnight.

ICTSI, regarded as one of the giants in the region's port operations, will perform its role to work to bring in some of their existing clients from their other port terminals in terms of economies of scale and will aim to bring more shipping lines to Brunei, he said.

Razon added that the ability of the port to co-exist with other major ports is not a pricing issue but a matter of location and circumstances of the local economy. The port will have a design capacity of up to 1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), which means that the port can handle roughly 1 million containers a year.

Asked about the physical advantages the PMB Port has over other regional ports, Razon said the island is very close to mainland and will require a short bridge to build. "Should the island want to expand, it can do so through reclamation and will not damage any of the mangrove forest and natural vegetation surrounding it," he said.

The port is already under construction and the entire project, whose other components include a manufacturing hub, is projected to generate 4,000 jobs. "We can already prepare the port to serve the existing market well before the PMB port is finished," Razon said.

ICTSI currently manages 16 ports in 11 countries including Brazil, China, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Madagascar, the Philippines, Poland, Syria, Ecuador and Georgia. It has a market capitalisation of US$1.5 billion and handled over 3 million containers last year.