One of the most compelling issues raised during the 24th ASEAN Ports and Logistics Conference here held from July 8 to 9 was the widening gap between the speed at which shipping lines can expand their fleets and the time required for ports to build the infrastructure needed to accommodate them.
This was highlighted by Malaysia’s Westports head of commercial and marketing Paul Carlos Ravindran during his presentation at the conference. His discussion underscored a growing concern in the maritime industry: shipping lines can order and deploy new vessels within several years, while major port expansions often require significantly longer periods to plan, finance, approve and construct.
Figures presented during the discussion, citing maritime research firm Alphaliner, showed that the world’s 20 largest container shipping lines operate 4,967 ships with a combined capacity of about 36.37 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
MSC leads the industry with 1,001 ships and capacity of 7.31 million TEUs. Maersk follows with 732 vessels and 4.67 million TEUs, CMA CGM operates 731 ships with capacity of 4.38 million TEUs, COSCO Group with 587 vessels at 3.63 million TEUs capacity, and Hapag-Lloyd with 292 at 2.14 million TEUs.
Together, the world’s 20 largest carriers have another 916 ships on order, representing nearly 17.66 million TEUs of additional capacity.
Containership deliveries scheduled from 2027 through 2030 are expected to reach about 13.8 million TEUs before accounting for vessels that may be retired. Even with some older ships eventually leaving service, the scale of the orderbook shows how rapidly the maritime industry is preparing to add capacity.
It is also worth taking note that the cargo handling of major East and Southeast Asian ports from 2019 to 2025 increased between 11 percent and 50 percent.
The question raised by Ravindran’s presentation is whether ports can keep pace. Larger fleets and vessels will require deeper channels, longer berths, higher-capacity cranes, wider container yards and more efficient systems for customs, warehousing and inland transport. Without these investments, the bottleneck may simply move from the sea to the terminal gate.
For Southeast Asia, the challenge is not only to expand existing ports but also to determine where the region’s next generation of maritime gateways should be located.
Continuing to concentrate cargo growth in a limited number of established ports could leave regional trade more vulnerable to congestion, disruptions and changing shipping routes. This is where new and complementary gateways should enter the regional conversation.
The proposed Casiguran International New Port within the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Authority (APECO) can be positioned as a Pacific-facing addition to the Philippines’ existing maritime network, providing future capacity and another access point for trade across the Pacific.
APECO’s proposition should not be viewed as replacing established ports but complementing them. As shipping lines prepare for the vessels they will deploy over the next five years, governments and investors must also begin preparing the ports, logistics systems and industrial areas that those vessels will require.
