Malaysia's greater Northports, southern Johor ports collaboration seen

The discussions were still at the “exploration” stage, he said, adding that there would be a clearer direction within a month. “Collaboration with other ports is one of the ways to achieve higher handling volume whereby we have a target of 3.3m teu this year from 2.58m teu last year.

“MMC Corp just came on board and we want to understand their operations in Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) and Johor Port first,” Abi Sofian said.

He hinted that the types of synergy could be in the form of knowledge transfer of the sales and marketing segment, as well as leveraging on MMC Corp’s clients to increase Northport’s volumes.

MMC Corp, which last year acquired a 15.7% stake in NCB Holdings, operates PTP and Johor Port while NCB Holdings is the terminal operator for Northport.