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Singapore must look beyond the box to secure its logistics future

Dropping behind Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan in the global container port rankings, and seeing Malaysia's Port Klang and Port of Tanjung Pelepas nip at its heels should serve as a wake-up call for Singapore, in a changing competitive landscape for box trades For Singapore, this is about more than losing a place in a league table. It is an existential question asking whether a nation built on maritime trade can adapt to a world where supply chain control matters as much as moving containers. As Singapore spent years living off its geographical advantages, deepwater harbour and reputation for efficiency to guarantee continued dominance, its competitors have expanded their infrastructure, attracted manufacturing investment, and developed integrated logistics ecosystems. The danger now for Singapore is that it continues competing on volumes, while the market moves towards supply chain orchestration. How do the two differ? A transit port moves containers; a supply chain orchestrator helps determine where goods are sourced, stored, distributed, and financed, allowing it to capture greater economic value, even if cargo physically passes through another country. Part of the problem for Singapore with its nearest rival is that it simply cannot compete with Malaysia when it comes to land availability, meaning it should not focus on warehouses and distribution centres. Instead, it should tap into the long-held advantages it has in expertise, connectivity, technology, and managing complex regional supply chains. That means attracting multinational manufacturers, cargo owners, and third-party logistics providers, particularly those active in high-value sectors such as biopharma, semiconductors, and aerospace spares, thereby building on the island's existing strengths. And the objective should be keeping procurement, inventory management, supply chain finance, and regional logistics decisions in Singapore, even if the boxes end up elsewhere. All of this necessitates closer integration between sea, air, and land transport, back-up by digital systems giving businesses greater visibility and control. And if Singapore's transport infrastructure operates as a connected ecosystem, its compact geography could prove a further significant advantage. And the pending Tuas Port, with its planned capacity of 65m teu on full completion in the 2040s, will have a part to play, even if success cannot be judged by volume alone. With nearshoring, manufacturing diversification, and geopolitical disruption reshaping trade, uninterrupted container growth cannot be taken for granted. For this reason, Tuas should, instead, provide resilience, operational flexibility, and capacity to absorb sudden changes in trade flows. Investment in alternative marine fuels and emissions data could also attract shippers facing tougher sustainability requirements. But again, infrastructure is only half the equation. No commercially ambitious ecosystem? Then even the most automated port risks becoming little more than an efficient place to park containers. Government has a role to play in this. Yes, the Ministry of Transport's new Connectivity & Logistics division recognises the need to integrate maritime, aviation, and land transport, but creating a coordinating body will not automatically deliver the commercial agility needed to compete. Instead, the government must work to embed industry expertise in its strategy. Consultations have their place, but they cannot replace the practical intelligence of logistics providers, cargo owners, and technology companies. These businesses understand rising costs, unreliable corridors, and customers' needs. They should help develop and execute strategy, not simply comment on government proposals. Singapore's position is under pressure, but its future as a supply chain powerhouse is far from decided. In 1972, Singapore made a bold bet on containerisation by developing Tanjong Pagar. The infrastructure, expertise, and connectivity that emerged from that remain valuable assets. The challenge now is to turn them into a more ambitious commercial proposition. If '72 brought containerisation, '26 requires a similarly decisive shift: from moving boxes to orchestrating supply chains.

NSR vs Suez: the Arctic is not a tradelane, it's a corridor with a hefty premium

Two sets of numbers have landed in the same week. On 19 October, data from Norway's Centre for High North Logistics (CHNL) showed 104 ships had crossed Russia's Northern Sea Route (NSR) by 30 September, already more than in all of 2025. Four days earlier, Lloyd's List Intelligence reported that containerships moved 2.19m teu through the Suez Canal last month, the most since the Houthi campaign began, and Linerlytica expects carriers to be fully back to Suez by the first quarter of 2027. Most coverage reads the first as proof that the Arctic is finally opening, but read together, they say something else: the part of the NSR Moscow planned and paid for has missed its targets by a wide margin, while the part it barely planned for has beaten them, because other people's chokepoints closed. Next summer will be the first test of what that growth is worth once they reopen. A plan that fell short In May 2018, Vladimir Putin set a target of 80m tonnes of NSR cargo a year by 2024. A 2022 development plan, costed at about RUB1.8trn ($29.7bn), kept that goal and added 150m tonnes for 2030. The route carried 37.9m tonnes in 2024 and 37m tonnes in 2025, its first fall since 2022. Rosatom expects about 40m tonnes this year - half the 2024 target, two years late. Almost all of it is Russian cargo from Russian ports, mainly Yamal LNG (21.3m tonnes in 2025) and crude from the Ob Gulf and Pechora Sea (7.8m tonnes). Growth was meant to come from Arctic LNG 2 and Rosneft's Vostok Oil. Sanctions crippled the first; the second is years behind. The "Polar Silk Road" did not make it into the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, approved on 12 March this year. It isn't that the NSR is missing from an Arctic section; the Arctic silk road itself is absent. Even the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), which did include the concept, stated only the aim to "take part in practical Arctic cooperation and build the Ice Silk Road". The route was always implied, not named. The transit surprise Transit cargo, the part foreign shippers care about, tells the opposite story. Russian officials once projected 1m tonnes in 2024 and 2m tonnes in 2030. CHNL estimates 3.7m tonnes was actually carried in the first nine months of 2026 alone. Look inside it: 22 tankers carried about 2.1m tonnes of crude east from Murmansk, Primorsk, and Ust-Luga. In 2024, 95% of transit cargo went from Russia to China. This is less an Asia-Europe shortcut than a sanctions-era export lane that avoids Baltic inspections, Black Sea drones, and the Red Sea. Containers a footnote By 30 September, CHNL counted four voyages linking Asia and Europe, with no Russian port at either end. Sea Legend's China-Europe Arctic Express completed eight sailings on seven ships of 1,500 to 4,900 teu, the last two leaving China early, on 27 September, because ice was forecast. Ningbo Customs says they carried 7,761 teu; other reports claim more than 14,000 teu, against about 15,700 teu offered. Whatever the final figure, it is clear the season moved less than one 24,000 teu ship carries on a single Suez sailing. Physical limits unchanged About 12.5 metres of draught in the Sannikov Strait caps containerships at roughly 5,000 teu, while ships without high ice-class have a three-month window, in a good year. Every voyage needs a permit from Rosatom's NSR Administration, which also sets the route and the escort. I costed the loop the way a carrier's network team would: a 4,900 teu ship, eight seasonal sailings, west through the Arctic and back via Suez. At October charter and bunker prices and half-full ships, a slot costs about twice a Suez slot, despite a shorter distance of 2,200 nautical miles. Per slot per day, a 4,900 teu ship costs nearly three times as much to charter as a 24,000 teu vessel. The escort adds $150,000-$280,000 a transit, and Chinese sources put Arctic hull and P&I cover at three to five times normal rates. If the higher volume claim is right and the ships sailed nearly full, the gap narrows, but does not close. The carbon case fails too: small, part-loaded ships at 18 knots emit more CO₂ per box than a Suez ULCV. Shippers paying that premium are buying neither speed nor lower emissions. They are buying a corridor the Houthis, Iran, and the US Navy cannot close. Only Russia can, since it issues the permits and runs the icebreakers. Who pays? The price is low because Moscow keeps it low. Escort tariffs were capped in roubles in 2014, so their dollar value has more than halved, and about half of the icebreaker programme is funded from the federal budget. The Far East ministry says escorting one ship now costs about RUB60m, against RUB16m a decade ago. A new tariff order is in draft, and in September the transport ministry proposed a per-tonne levy on Russian exporters to fund two more icebreakers. The bill is being moved around; it has not gone away. The delivery schedule of 120MW Rossiya - a nuclear-powered tug, and flagship of the year-round promise which is expected to be break ice up to four metres thick and create a 50-metre wide channel - has slipped from 2027 to the end of 2029. Western carriers will not fill the gap. Atomflot has been under US sanctions since 2023, and MSC, CMA CGM, and Hapag-Lloyd have pledged not to use Arctic routes. Cosco has stayed out since 2022, leaving the risk to private operators such as Sea Legend and NewNew Shipping. The case for patience The strongest counter-argument is that ice is retreating, Beijing is patient and transit has beaten every forecast, so the planners may have been wrong only about timing. I am not convinced. Transit grew in exactly the years the Red Sea was shut, Hormuz was fought over, and Russia's westbound exports were blocked. Those are shocks, not trends. With Hormuz still contested, the eastbound crude may hold up for a while. The battery and EV boxes are another matter. Once Asia-North Europe strings are back on weekly Suez rotations with 24,000 teu ships, a Chinese exporter will be offered a cheaper, year-round, sanctions-free alternative. Next season will tell us: whether Sea Legend can fill its NSR ships with Suez in use; what Russia's new tariff will cost for foreign transits; and whether Cosco comes back, which would mean Beijing judges the sanctions-risk worth taking. Until then, the NSR is not a tradelane. It is an insurance policy that Russia writes and Russia underwrites, and which China buys only when the other routes are on fire.

Terminal operators and liners eye concession opportunity at Colombo Port

Global terminal operators, backed by container shipping groups, are keenly eyeing fresh concessions at Sri Lanka's Colombo port, according to industry sources. One opportunity up for grabs soon is a rebid for South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT), where 30-year concession rights end in 2029. SAGT's ownership has four partners: 42% held by John Keells Holdings; 33% by Maersk/APMT; 15% by Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA); and 10% by Evergreen. According to sources in Colombo, Sri Lankan policymakers are not considering a further extension of the concession term but will seek new proposals. "There are clear signals that SLPA will go in for a fresh tendering attempt," one source told The Loadstar. SAGT, which has three berths with a total quay of 940 metres, and able to handle 2m teu annually, began operations in 1999. The terminal handled 1.8m teu in fiscal year 2025-26, which was down 11% year on year, as the Middle East crisis resulted in a wave of service suspensions, according to available data. Sources said most major liners were upbeat about staking a claim for SAGT, with indications that Maersk will partner with another European liner to jointly pursue the concession rights. The Danish group had previously explored collaborating with an Asian carrier, but the prospect of EU regulatory clearance risks was understood to have derailed that move, sources added. "A joint bid between two European liner behemoths could be a game-changer for Colombo's terminal operations," one Sri Lankan port veteran told The Loadstar. Sources believe Colombo's booming transhipment traffic offers investors a stronger growth proposition, so bidding for any upcoming projects at the port is expected to be heated. Despite the nagging capacity strain and growing competition from Indian ports, Colombo saw combined throughput in H1 26 spike 12% year on year, to 4.4m teu. Meanwhile, until new concessions emerge or become operational, Adani Group's $750m investment in Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT) is seen to be Colombo's primary growth engine. CWIT has officially launched phase 2 operations, doubling its capacity to 3.2m teu, after hitting 2m teu within 18 months of phase 1 operations, claimed to be the fastest growth seen by any operator at the port. "With additional capacity, CWIT would be able to simultaneously berth three ultra-large container vessels, strengthening Colombo's position as a critical transhipment hub on the east-west trade route," said Adani Ports (APSEZ). "Phase 2 is a landmark for APSEZ's international portfolio and sharpens our position across the Indian Ocean's key trade corridors. With expanded capacity, full automation and deepwater infrastructure, CWIT is built to be Colombo's premier transshipment gateway and contribute to export/import cargo in Sri Lanka." In recent years, Adani has markedly expanded its terminal networks beyond India, aiming to become the world's largest port operator handling 1bn tonnes of cargo across markets by 2030 - doubling the 500m tonnes in fiscal 2025-26.