Global seaports must carry out massive expansion and modernisation within the next decade to cope with the entry of mega-container ships carrying an ever-growing volume of global trade, industry players say.
As countries build new airport terminals or renovate existing ones to accommodate the new double-decker Airbus A380 jetliner, seaports also need to build wider berths, automate cargo handling and storage facilities and invest in bigger cranes, the industry players told a cargo-handling conference in Singapore.
An estimated 80 percent of global trade is carried by sea. Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa is the world's biggest container port operator, followed by Singapore's PSA International.
"The size of the vessels is increasing, yet ports... have been struggling over recent years to cope," said Satoshi Inoue, secretary-general of the International Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH).
"Already, we are experiencing serious congestion in major ports in the world, particularly in the United States and Northern Europe," he told the conference on Wednesday organised by the International Cargo Handling Co-ordinating Association (ICHCA).
"In 10 years' time, the world's ports need to more than double their capacity in handling if they are to play a central role in the global logistics system."
This means having to turn around much bigger ships, including vessels being planned to carry up to 14,500 20-foot container boxes - more than double the size of current sixth-generation ships with capacities of between 6,000 and 7,000 boxes.
By 2010, the number of 'post-Panamax' ships - modern vessels that are too big to pass through the Panama Canal - would number 682, nearly double the current fleet of 391, ICHCA International Ltd director Peter Bosmans said.