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.”