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ingapore-based port company PSA International is eyeing cooperation with Indonesia'€™s state-owned port operator PT Pelindo II, also known as Indonesia Port Corporation (IPC), on the latter'€™s development project in Kalibaru, North
Jakarta.

The Singaporean firm offers Pelindo world-class facilities for the Kalibaru Port.

IPC president director RJ Lino said recently that PSA was one of 18 major international shipping lines bidding for the construction of the second and third terminals in Kalibaru Port.

'€œPSA is one of the bidders. We target to announce the winner in September,'€ he told reporters during a visit to Singapore.

Aside from the construction of infrastructure, Lino said, the most important thing was to make the port efficient, so that productivity would increase.

The second and third terminals, with a total capacity of 3 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), are expected to commence operations in 2016.

Data from the IPC shows that traffic in Indonesia'€™s busiest port, Tanjung Priok, reached 6.2 million TEUs by the end of last year, up from 5.6 million TEUs in 2011. In fact, the port was only designed to accommodate 5 million TEUs of containers.

Previously, the firm had announced that Japan'€™s Mitsui & Co., Ltd. had won the tender to run Kalibaru'€™s first container terminal, which has a capacity of 1.5 million TEUs.

The Rp 24 trillion (US$2.5 billion) port is set to be constructed in three phases.

Group CEO of PSA Tan Chong Meng said Tanjung Priok Port needed an expansion as the port was inevitably growing.

'€œWhat we are trying to do with Priok, as with Dammam in Saudi Arabia, is to equip it with world class mega facilities,'€ he said.

Tanjung Priok Port, at best, could only accommodate ships with a capacity of 5,000 TEUs to 6,000 TEUs, while the capacity of mega vessels is from 12,500 TEUs to 18,000 TEUs.

Tan said PSA offered two things to the IPC. '€œBecause we are from the government, we look at the port as a part of the total ecosystem of the country,'€ he said, claiming that the company did not only think about the profit.

PSA, now a global port group, used to be a port authority and terminal operator before it was corporatized and became a commercial entity in 1997. The company currently manages 13 ports across the globe.

He said PSA also offered cooperation in human resource development. '€œIf we have a partnership, we can discuss what learning IPC can provide for people and do some business with commercial customers,'€ he said.

Tan said the outlook for Asian trade is positive as Europe was still shaky, the United States was still recovering and Africa would take some time to develop.

'€œSo it is important for us to work closely together to support continuing growth,'€ he said.

Chinta Baghat, the managing partner for McKinsey and Company'€™s South East Asia office, said a port business was a network business, so port operators needed to cooperate.

Chinta said the transport industry grew two to three times faster than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country. In China, for example, the GDP growth was 11 percent, so the transport industry has been growing from 25 to 28 percent.

'€œDon'€™t worry about demand, we have to worry about supply as Indonesia does not have enough capacity,'€ he said.