"We're more than confident of clinching the deal," KPM managing director Abdul Halim told Cargonews Asia (CNA), adding that it is only a matter of time before an official announcement is made. "We've been working on it for quite some time."
KPM, together with Kelang Container Terminal (KCT) and leading road haulage company Kontena Nasional (KN), are now under a single ownership entity called Northport Corporation Berhad (NCB). The Cambodian port project is expected to be placed under NCB's authority.
Abdul Halim, an accountant who will also be managing director of KCT following the equity restructuring exercise, told CNA that Northport would be going into the Cambodian port project together with local partner MSE Ptd Ltd. MSE is also Northport's joint venture partner in the Phnom Penh inland container depot project.
Presently, KPM holds a 40 per cent equity stake in the MSE KPM Ptd Ltd's ICD, which controls about 85 per cent of the Phnom Penh market, handling more than 1,000 TEUs monthly.
For KPM, the involvement in the Sihanoukville Port, about 250 kilometres from the Cambodian capital, makes a lot of sense. Buoyed by a "feel good" sense over expectations that Port Klang terminal (KPM) will hit, for the first time, the one-million-TEU mark in December after only seven years of operations, KPM is more than ready to sell its port management expertise overseas. Abdul Halim described this move as part of the company's economic diversification.
Its sister terminal, KCT, is expected to hit the one-million-TEU mark a month earlier, and to move around 1.2 million TEUs by December of this year, putting both terminals well above the two-million-TEU mark.
"I'm going to Phnom Penh at the end of this month (September) to find out the exact position. We've made our final offer and I expect the reply by October or November," said Abdul Halim.
The seaport in Cambodia handles about 100,000 TEUs annually, and Abdul Halim said that with greater stability under the Hun Sen government and growing foreign investments, it is expected that the import-export trade will continue to grow further. "I see a lot of future potential in the port business in Cambodia."
Abdul Halim will be meeting the relevant Cambodian authorities, together with KPM's local partner, MSE Ptd Ltd's major shareholder, Ly Say Khieng. He also said that KPM had also put in a bid last for the privatisation of the port services at Bombay Port.