PM Lawrence Wong at the Groundbreaking of PSA's Supply Chain Hub @ Tuas

PSA International Chairman and CEO,
Distinguished guests and Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Five years ago, we launched the development works for Tuas Port. Two years ago, we officially opened Tuas Port. Today, I am happy to be here at Tuas for the first time to break ground for the construction of the PSA Supply Chain Hub.

The Supply Chain Hub marks another milestone in our multi-decade project of developing Tuas Port.

It underscores PSA’s commitment to providing customers with best-in-class services.

And it also signals Singapore’s wider commitment to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving global trading environment.

The Port in the Singapore Story

The Port is critical to Singapore; and to the lives and livelihoods of all Singaporeans.

It connects Singapore to the world, to resources, markets, and to global trade.

The Port of Singapore is connected to over 600 seaports across 120 countries. We are an international maritime centre, and the focal point for some 200 shipping groups.

The Port provides good jobs across the maritime ecosystem, which includes everything from logistics and energy trading, to insurance and shipping law. And the maritime sector in turn facilitates and drives the growth of many other parts of the economy.

Our founding leaders and pioneers had the foresight to take advantage of Singapore’s strategic location at the crossroads of the East and West, and they built world-class port infrastructure and consistently upgraded it over the decades.

Today we reap the benefits of these investments.

We are the busiest transshipment container port in the world, accounting for one seventh of global transhipment volumes.

Our port handles an average of 120,000 vessel calls, from tankers and bulk carriers, to container vessels and ferries – adding up to a combined tonnage of over 3 billion gross tonnes annually.

All that happening in our little red dot. It’s quite an achievement.

Our actions over the decades have also consistently reinforced Singapore’s reputation for trust and reliability.

We saw this during Covid. Many ports elsewhere were closed, while those that remained open experienced severe delays and congestion.

We stayed open 24/7. We continued to turn around cargo, including containers, providing much-needed connectivity to the world and ensuring that critical goods, including vaccines, arrived on our shores and reached other countries.

We facilitated crew changes when other countries were initially unwilling to, while keeping public health safeguards in place. This allowed ships to sail, cargo to move, and seafarers to return home.

In doing so, we contributed to the stability of global supply chains, and demonstrated the value to users of shipping goods through Singapore.

Now, our Port is doing better than ever.

Container throughput continued to rise during the Covid pandemic and reached a record high of 39 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, last year.

In the first nine months of this year, container throughput has risen further, as have vessel arrivals and bunker volumes.

We hope to cross 40 million TEUs this year.

Well done, Maritime Singapore and PSA!

We have achieved much together. But we all know that we cannot take success for granted. The long arc of global history is full of stories of ports that have flourished and thrived for decades, only to decline amidst changing circumstances.

The lesson is that we cannot be complacent.

Moreover, unlike ports in countries with large production and consumption bases, we has no hinterland of our own.

So, we must remain plugged into global supply chains, so that ships – be it container vessels, tankers, or bulk carriers – will continue to call in our waters, and everyone around the world will see value in connecting with Singapore.

And that means that we must continually invest, not just in the Port of Singapore, but also in value-added capabilities, so that we can keep on adapting and staying abreast of changing trends.

The Port of the Future

One major trend is the growing scale of shipping. Shipping is becoming “supersized”.

Ships are growing bigger. The early container ships of the 1950s could carry 500 to 800 containers. Now, they can carry up to 25,000 containers.

Shipping alliances are also growing bigger. These alliances have been a feature of the industry for decades, but now, large alliances are becoming mega alliances.

That means two things for us.

First, ports need to have extensive infrastructure and capabilities to handle large ships efficiently, as well as the large number of containers on these ships.

Second, ports must also demonstrate value-add to shipping alliances, to attract the large fleets of vessels they operate.

The major alliances today hold over 80% of the world’s container shipping capacity; changes in their service networks could significantly affect traffic to hubs like Singapore.

And we also know that competition is getting fiercer and more intense.

Major ports like Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhoushan and Rotterdam are upgrading their infrastructure to service larger vessels and to attract these mega alliances.

They are offering value-added services beyond just moving containers. They have cold storage facilities and regional distribution centres to help customers deal with more complex and volatile supply chains.

So, we too will have to sharpen our competitive edge, to remain the preferred port of call.

That is why we are expanding our capacity to meet the demands of the shipping industry.

When fully completed in the 2040s, Tuas Port will be the world’s largest fully automated port, capable of handling 65 million TEUs annually.

This is almost double what all our ports handle currently.

With this capacity, Tuas Port will serve even more of the world’s largest container vessels, alliances and shipping lines.

And we will be able to handle increasingly complex and voluminous transactions, with efficiency and precision.

The PSA Supply Chain Hub which we are groundbreaking today will also further improve Tuas Port’s competitiveness, by enhancing our ability to handle cargo shipments, not just containers, but shipments.

Because today we move many containers from ship to ship in Singapore. We do this efficiently, we do it well.

But businesses may not always need to move full containers of cargo.

Some may want to consolidate their cargoes to make up full containers, before shipping them onwards – this is more time- and cost-efficient than waiting to accumulate a full container of cargo. Conversely, there’s also a need to deconsolidate cargoes, so that “less-than-container” loads of cargo can be processed and distributed.

Currently, Keppel Distripark specialises in the consolidation, deconsolidation and distribution of such cargoes. But Keppel Distripark will close by 2027, as part of the shift to Tuas.

And that is why we have this Supply Chain Hub. It will expand the capacity currently available at Keppel Distripark, and allow us to attract more trade flows, including from those seeking cargo management services, not just container services.

And as you heard from (PSA) Chairman just now, the Supply Chain Hub will also introduce new capabilities not currently available at Keppel Distripark, and differentiate itself from its peers in other ports through technology.

These include facilities to process cargo in cold storage, and to handle dangerous or delicate goods.

These facilities will allow the Supply Chain Hub to process higher-value cargo, like pharmaceuticals which require temperature-controlled storage, and chemicals which require specialised handling.

Currently, businesses that want such services would have to truck their cargoes out of the Port – which incurs duties – then truck it back to the Port for shipping again. This takes time, and it adds up to additional costs.

So, the Supply Chain Hub will provide all these new capabilities under one roof, within the same Free Trade Zone. So businesses can enjoy these value-added services, faster and more seamlessly.

We want businesses to use Tuas Port as a convenient and efficient one-stop shop, not only for their physical goods, but also as a control tower to manage their inventory and global supply chain flows.

For its part, the Government will help to ensure that cargoes and vessels move on time and on schedule. In particular, to deal with the increased complexity of maritime activities, MPA is developing new systems to enhance navigational safety, and improve operational efficiency within the Singapore Strait and our port waters. We will have the improved abilities to anticipate potential disruptions and hazards, and to manage incidents.

The Port of Singapore is importantly part of the broader manufacturing, services and innovation ecosystem that we are building.

Tuas Port will be the anchor for the future Western Gateway. So there will be synergies with the surrounding industries at Jurong Lake District, Jurong Innovation District, as well as the industrial facilities in the Tuas Ecosystem.

Together with the rest of our transport infrastructure, Tuas Port will unlock new possibilities for Singapore.

An integral part of our long-term competitiveness is to ensure sustainable operations, and that means we are also taking seriously our responsibilities to meet the IMO’s (International Maritime Organization’s) target of net-zero emissions by or around 2050.

We are preparing for a multi-fuel future involving cleaner maritime fuels.

We are supporting ammonia and methanol bunkering fuel operations, to help develop procedures and standards for the safe use of these new fuels.

And we are also contributing to IMO discussions on global bunkering, safety and training standards for cleaner marine fuels, and energy efficiency measures to cut emissions from international shipping.

We have also set up Green and Digital Shipping Corridors with Australia, China, Japan, the Netherlands and the US, to test green and digital solutions before scaling them up.

These moves, led by MPA and its partners, will significantly enhance our ability to serve the changing demands of industry, and preserve our position as a trusted node in global supply chain nodes.

The People Behind the Port

All that I have just described, our ability to do all that, ultimately depends on the people who are part of our Team Maritime Singapore.

All of you here in this hall, and many other partners and stakeholders, you have proven time and again that you are resilient in the face of headwinds, and flexible to adapt to changing winds.

We will continue to invest in a strong pipeline of maritime talent in Singapore – invest in people who appreciate our precious heritage, our unique circumstances, and our abilities to work together as one team to take our ports and our nation forward.

Recently, when the conflict in the Middle East disrupted shipping through the Red Sea, it created port congestion around the world, including in Singapore.

Our workers, our unions, working together with PSA, MPA, and the Transport Ministry – came together to ramp up capacity.

They opened new berths, so that more containers and vessels could be handled. They not only worked harder but also smarter, to optimise processes and do more in less time.

And all this ensured that businesses and consumers in Singapore were well shielded from supply shortages and disruptions seen elsewhere.

That is the critical ingredient behind our success. It is our people, and our ability to work together as tripartite partners, to achieve win-win outcomes for all.

This spirit of solidarity has enabled us in Singapore to overcome multiple challenges in the past.

It has helped us to enable workers to reskill and upskill, and stay updated to new technologies, to ensure that everyone benefits, as we grow and transform the maritime industry together.

Tuas Port is a muti-generational project.

By now, we have opened 10 berths.

Today we are starting work on the Supply Chain Hub of PSA.

But we are not done yet.

There will be many more developments in the coming years – to ensure that Tuas Port can continue to serve the largest container vessels and orchestrate end-to-end supply chain solutions.

We aim for Tuas Port to be the port of the future – setting new standards for innovation, sustainability and connectivity.

Working together, I am confident that we will remain at the forefront of international shipping, and we will keep our port city of Singapore a thriving hub for many more decades to come!

Thank you very much.