KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 – The government has drawn up short and long-term strategies to strengthen the competitiveness of the country’s main ports, namely Port Klang and Port of Tanjung Pelepas.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke said the strategy covers aspects of increasing capacity, improving efficiency and productivity, as well as transformation towards a low-carbon green port.
“The Ministry of Transport (MOT) is confident that the performance of the country’s main ports will continue to grow positively in the years to come,” he said during the question and answer session at the Dewan Negara on Wednesday.
He was replying to Senator Dr A Lingeshwaran who wanted to know whether the construction of the ‘land bridge’ that will connect the Adaman Sea with the Gulf of Thailand will affect the number of ships anchored in Malaysia and Malaysia’s plans to deal with it.
Anthony said the good relationship between Malaysia and Thailand opens up space for the countries to establish cooperation to work on new high-impact initiatives for mutual benefit.
“Besides port development, Malaysia is ready to share with Thailand the latest development of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project where the ECRL terminal station in Kota Bharu is actually very close to the Malaysia-Thailand border.
“The government is also open to proposals to extend the ECRL track to the Malaysia-Thailand border and connect directly to the existing Thai rail network or new infrastructure that will be developed in the future,” he said.
He said if the railway connectivity of the two countries could be improved, the movement of cargo and passengers would be more rapid thus catalyzing economic growth in the northern region and east coast of Malaysia with Southern Thailand.
In fact, he said the approach is also able to improve regional economic integration by connecting the two countries to China’s network and market through Laos.
