Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said her city’s port had plenty of room for improvement after being impressed by Shanghai’s Yangshan Harbor and its deep-water port during a visit yesterday, shortly before returning to Taiwan.
Impressed with the size of Yangshan Harbor, Chen — the highest-ranking official from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to have set foot in China — said the rise of the Shanghai port and other Chinese ports posed a challenge to Kaohsiung’s container handling ranking and that more effort was needed to improve Kaohsiung port’s facilities.
She said, however, that it was improper to compare the Kaohsiung and Shanghai ports because the two were different geographically and environmentally and had different functions.
Noting that Kaohsiung Harbor is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Chen said the Kaohsiung City Government would do everything it could to cooperate with the central government on any project that benefits the port, Taiwan’s largest.
“I hope Kaohsiung and Yangshan harbors can learn from each other and grow simultaneously through healthy competition,” she said, adding that Kaohsiung was an international seaport and could play host to international cruise liners for tourism.
Taiwan plans to add facilities in Kaohsiung to expand its capacity and to help the port compete with overseas harbors.
The plan is one of 12 major public works projects unveiled by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government in a bid to revive the nation’s economy.
The Kaohsiung Port was once ranked as the world’s third busiest container port but fell out of the top 10 last year.
Hit by the global economic downturn and a dramatic fall in the country’s exports in the fourth quarter, the port handled 9.67 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year, down 5 percent from 2007, Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau statistics showed.
In order to revive its global competitiveness, the bureau has launched several construction and dredging projects with the aim of increasing the port’s container handling capability by 2 million TEUs per year.
The bureau also plans to develop the port into a value-added distribution center and offer incentives to foreign shippers and warehousing companies to set up facilities there following newly opened shipping links with China.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies have begun eyeing investments in Taiwan, including the port, as Ma’s government considers easing restrictions on cross-strait investment.
On Friday, Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) chairman Frank Lu (盧峰海) told reporters that two Chinese companies, China Ocean Shipping Group Co (中遠集團) and China Merchants Group (招商局集團), were looking to invest 20 percent each in Yang Ming’s container berth project at Kaohsiung Port.
“Several Chinese investors are interested in a stake” in the terminals, Yang Ming president Robert Ho (何樹生) said on Friday.
Cosco and China Merchants “are the most interested. We have been talking continuously,” Ho said.
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