Kaohsiung Harbour - No longer a top ten port

Taipei (Seatrade Asia Online): The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) has planned to set up a Shipping Affairs Administration in 2011 to supervise the operations of four international harbor affairs firms to be transformed from the existing four major international harbour bureaus, thereby upgrading the competitiveness of Taiwan’s major international harbors, a top MOTC official told the China Post on Friday.

Yeh Kuang-shih, vice minister of transportation and communications, made the remarks at the transportation committee meeting of the Legislative Yuan.

During the legislative session, lawmakers doubted the justification of the government decision to build direct shipping links across the Taiwan Strait, as Kaohsiung Harbour, the island’s largest international harbor, has been squeezed out of the world’s top-10 harbors in terms of cargo loading and unloading volumes.

Lawmaker Yang Jen-fu of the ruling Kuomintang said that the cargo handling volume of the Kaohsiung Port has declined after cross-strait direct shipping links took effect, indicating that relatively weak competitiveness of the port.

Another KMT lawmaker Lo Shu-lei also said that the Kaohsiung port used to take the No.3 place in the world, and still maintained the No. 6 spot in 2006, but the ranking dropped sharply to 12th in 2008, losing ground to ports in mainland China. read more at Seatrade Asia Online…