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Kaohsiung Harbor's competitiveness falling fast: report

Kaohsiung Harbor management vowed yesterday to boost productivity as a report showed that although Kaohsiung retained its title as the world's sixth-busiest container port last year, it is quickly losing its competitiveness.

"We will try to boost our efficiency, cut shipping lines' cost and increase the number of trans-shipment containers," Harbor Master Huang Kuo-ying (黃國英) said.

"Our target for 2006 is 10 million TEUs [20-foot equivalent units], and half of them will be trans-shipment containers," he said.

Huang was responding to the Ministry of Transportation and Communication's report which warned that Kaohsiung Harbor was quickly losing its competitiveness because of Taiwan's five-decade ban on sea links with China and the expansion of foreign ports, especially Chinese ports.

Kaohsiung Harbor was the world's third-largest container port in 1999.

The ministry's report is based on the compilation of the world's top-30 container ports last year by the London-based Container International monthly.

According to the March issue, the container volume of all the top-30 ports -- except Kaohsiung -- rose, some by even 20 percent.

But Kaohsiung Harbor's container volume fell by 2.5 percent to 9.47 million TEUs last year, and its gap with Rotterdam Port -- which ranks seventh -- has shrunk from 1.4 million TEUs in 2004 to 180,000 TEUs last year.

According to Containerisation International magazine, Singapore led the world's top-10 container ports last year with 23.19 million TEUs, followed by Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Busan.
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