PKFZ draws RM900m investment: Ong

PORT KLANG, March 2 (Bernama) -- The Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) has attracted more than RM900 million investment, offering over 1,000 job opportunities to date.

The more than 50 investors in PKFZ were involved in various activities spanning from manufacturing, trading, logistics and general services, said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat.

In fact, one of the world's largest manufacturers of subsea oil and gas equipment, Aker Solutions of Norway, set foot in PKFZ in 2007 and positioned Port Klang as its base for the Asia Pacific region, he said in a speech read out by Port Klang Authority Chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng at the PKFZ Chinese New Year Open House at the industrial and business site in Pulau Indah here today.

"The efforts in promoting PKFZ as the preferred logistics and distribution hub have started to bear fruit with the emergence of the London Metal Exchange and cotton distribution hubs in PKFZ," he said.

He said the potential growth of cargo volumes in PKFZ arising from the continuous flow of investments and the spin-off activities was expected to contribute substantially to the future throughput of Port Klang and the overall economic development in Pulau Indah.

Ong said that despite the negative publicity surrounding the project, PKFZ had recorded impressive growth of cargo over the last three years.

"In 2007, only 1,581 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) of containers and 34,175 tonnes of cargo were handled in PKFZ.

"The volume handled in 2009 has increased tremendously to 43,032 TEUs and 1.28 million tonnes of cargo, representing a growth of 372 percent and 223 percent respectively," he said.

Ong said the government recently embarked on various initiatives to review the relevant procedures to ease the process of doing business here.

Among them was to revamp the current set up of one-stop agency and the procedures relating to investment facilitation and cargo movements between PKFZ, the port terminals and principal customs area, he said.

He said that beginning Feb 1 this year, cargo movements between PKFZ and Borth Port by rail or road could be facilitated using a more simplified form.

This was made possible with the cooperation from the Finance Ministry, Selangor Customs Department and Northport.

PKFZ is located on a 405-ha site in Pulau Indah near West Port, Port Klang, and was labelled by certain quarters as a White Elephant Project with its questionable development cost at RM4.6 billion funded via soft land from the Finance Ministry.

It comprises of 256-ha open space for factory/warehouse, 512 light industrial units and 500,000 sg ft office space for rent, 135 hotel rooms and an exhibition centre.