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Port of Singapore faces new challenges - but also new opportunities

Singapore's position as a global container transhipment hub depends on its ability to remain competitive within international liner shipping networks, as rival ports accelerate investment in digitalisation and automation. At the Singapore Port Workers Union's 80th anniversary dinner on Sunday, senior minister Lee Hsien Loong (pictured) said Singapore's port competitiveness could not be taken for granted, and warned that complacency at PSA International risked losing business to competing ports. Unlike major Chinese gateways such as Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan, which benefit from substantial domestic volumes, Singapore relies heavily on transhipment traffic and its role as a connecting hub for global shipping lines. Maintaining this position required the port to continually improve efficiency, productivity, and operational capabilities to remain attractive to carriers, he said. Mr Lee, who was Singapore's prime minister from 2004 to 2024, cited Shanghai's Yangshan port as an example of a competitor making significant advances in automation and digitalisation. As rival ports upgrade their infrastructure and operations, Singapore would need to continue investing to preserve its competitive edge and retain shipping customers. The challenge is particularly important as Singapore consolidates container operations from Tanjong Pagar, Brani, Keppel ,and Pasir Panjang at Tuas. The new port is expected to have an annual handling capacity of 65m teu by the 2040s, with technology playing a central role in increasing throughput and maximising productivity, amid the country's land constraints. Singapore handled almost 45m teu in 2025, while throughput in the first half of this year was up 4.7% year on year, to 22.7m teu. Mr Lee's warning reflected Singapore's experience in the 2000s, when it lost Taiwan's Evergreen to Malaysia's new Tanjung Pelepas port, prompting PSA to cut jobs in 2003, and restructure operations to restore competitiveness. Although Evergreen returned to Singapore in 2024 after securing a terminal concession with PSA, the episode illustrates the risks of losing business in an industry where shipping lines can redirect their networks towards competing hubs. Mr Lee said: "Apart from competition from other ports, the industry itself is transforming in fundamental ways. Supply chain disruptions, climate change, geopolitical tensions are all affecting shippers and port operators. Rapid advances in AI, autonomous technology, sensors, and robotics are already dramatically transforming port operations." For Singapore, maintaining its position would, therefore, depend on more than expanding capacity at Tuas: it would require sustained technological advancement and continuous adaptation to the changing demands of global liner shipping networks, he said. Mr Lee added: "These developments present new challenges, but also new opportunities. There'll be higher-value tasks which are less physically demanding; better jobs, centred on data, judgment, and decision making. PSA must keep abreast of these changes and reinvent itself.....to turn these new challenges into opportunities."

CargoAi launches new business intelligence tool

CargoAi has added a new business intelligence tool to bring together various features in a single dashboard. The tech firm said its CargoMART Strategic Hub allows decisions made at headquarters to feed through to local teams when searching and booking capacity. In total, there are 12 modules that combine continuously refreshed commercial and operational data, global carrier visibility, historical and predictive market rate intelligence and AI-powered recommendations. Drilling further into the modules the tool features, CargoAi said it has: An executive summary dashboard with KPIs and recommendations; procurement benchmarking such as rate comparison; allocation performance including booked vs flown; operational performance such as milestones and service quality; carrier prioritisation; AI workers integration for shared intelligence; staff training hub; and weekly executive briefings. CargoAi chief executive Matt Petot: "Air cargo companies already have access to more data than ever before. The challenge is making sure that intelligence actually drives what happens across their operations. "With CargoMART Strategic Hub, we are connecting the decisions made by leadership teams with the tools their people use every day. "From carrier strategy and rate management to operational execution and AI workers, everything can work from the same live intelligence." The tech firm emphasised that its carrier prioritisation module allows companies to define preferred airlines and commercial priorities at headquarters level. "These preferences are reflected directly in local CargoMART search results, ensuring global procurement strategies influence daily booking decisions." Meanwhile, the market rate benchmark combines aggregated historical rates with predictive pricing forecasts. And the shared allocation intelligence gives airlines and freight forwarders a common view of allotment performance, utilisation and available capacity. "The future of air cargo is not about having more dashboards. It is about connecting intelligence with execution," added Matt Petot. "When a procurement decision made at headquarters can influence what a team books locally, and when AI workers can operate from the same business intelligence, we move beyond digitalisation toward truly connected operations."

Cathay Cargo sees volumes boom in September

Hong Kong-based Cathay Cargo, the freight division within the Cathay Group, carried more than 150,000 tonnes of cargo last month (September), a figure up by 14.2% on the same month of last year. Cathay chief customer and commercial officer pointed to the increase being driven by "resilient cargo demand". Capacity as measured in available freight tonne km (AFTKs) was up by 5.3% year on year. Over the first nine months of 2026, total tonnage carried was up by 8.9% compared with the same period of 2025, reaching a figure of 1.3m tonnes. Over that same period, capacity rose by 3.3% year on year. The cargo load factor reached 58.9% in September, up by 1.8% on the same month of 2025. The cargo load factor also averaged 58.9% over the first three quarters of this year, up by 0.8% year on year. Lau observed: "We continued to see year-on-year tonnage growth in September, with demand remaining resilient from the Chinese Mainland and Southeast Asia. "In terms of our specialist solutions, Cathay Priority maintained its momentum, boosted by time-critical shipments from Southeast Asia, while continued semiconductor flows underpinned strong demand for our Cathay Expert solution. "Looking ahead, we expect demand to strengthen further as we approach the traditional year-end air cargo peak season, supported by a positive market outlook for the fourth quarter." Lau did also point to more worrying "elevated" jet fuel prices, however, that increase airline costs. Earlier this month, Cathay Cargo confirmed that it had added more transpacific freighter capacity between its home hub at Hong Kong International Airport and Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Mexico, as part of its plans to move more technology-related shipments during the peak season. Jonathan Ng, head of cargo hub operations & development at Cathay, had announced in September that transpacific freighter capacity would be added to cater for growth in semiconductor and data-centre equipment shipments but did not specify where.