Singapore port operator PSA Corp, which has been losing customers to neighbouring Malaysia's Port of Tanjung Pelepas, has managed to win back one, a report in the Business Times said on Friday.
The report said Bengal Tiger Lines (BTL), the largest operator dedicated to shipping cargo between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, is the first to make the switch back to Singapore, the world's second busiest container port after Hong Kong.
BTL ceased calling at Pelepas this month, moving its twice weekly services back to Singapore.
The move comes after the world's largest shipping line Maersk Sealand stopped transhipping its India export cargo at the Johor port through BTL's feeder services.
Maersk has opted instead to shift the volume to its Middle East hub at Salalah in Oman, using its own ships on a new service.
The report added that BTL was the biggest non-Malaysian feeder operator calling at Pelepas and its departure is a setback for the Malaysian port which needs to boost its connectivity to smaller ports in the region.
The BTL move comes as the three year old Malaysian port, which won over PSA's top two customers Maersk and Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp, chalked up a 31 percent rise in volume to handle a record 3.5 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) containers in 2003.
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