Tiger, tiger, burning brig

摘要

The growth of the South East Asian economies over the last 20 years, combined with the rapid containerisation of all the east-west trade routes, has led to a massive investment in container handling infrastructure throughout the region. In Thailand, the development of the country's economy by the early 1980s was critically affected by congestion at Bangkok's Klong Toey port, which was constrained by its position several hours up-river, and unable to expand due to its city-centre location. Substantial government investment was therefore made in a major new deepsea bulk port and container terminal, some 130km east of Bangkok on a greenfield site at Laem Chabang. In 2000, Laem Chabang handled some 2.2 million TEUs, putting it in the top 25 container terminals in the world (see 'Top 30 ports', Containerisation International, March 2001, p93).