Page 31 - Demo

Figure 15. Port area comparison between Singapore and Hong KongSource: Google EarthPSA Singapore Terminals (858 ha)Kwai Tsing ContainerTerminals (279 ha)After a transhipment container is discharged at Kwai Tsing Container Terminal, the container will stay at the yard area for a few days before being loaded onto another vessel to reach its destination. This means a transhipment hub requires a large yard to accommodate these ‘backlog’ containers waiting for the next ship. However, a comparison of the top ports in the world showed that HKP not only has the smallest yard area, but its yard-to-throughput ratio (hectares of yard per 1 million TEU) and yard-to-berth ratio (hectares of yard per berth) are also the lowest among all others (Table 1). On the one hand, one could argue that the port operators at HKP are extremely efficient, utilising a small yard area to support an enormous amount of container throughput. On the other hand, the lack of land also puts a glass ceiling onto HKP’s future throughput growth.To put the comparison of port size into perspective, we juxtaposed the satellite images of Singapore’s port area and Hong Kong’s KTCTs (Figure 15), as both ports have a high percentage of transhipment business in their total container throughput.29