27 Jakarta Throughput: 3,984,278teu (+8.0%)

While Jakarta is Indonesia's largest container port, it has never assumed the hub status that its stakeholders have desired. Moreover, compared with several other Asian ports, it has never achieved the consistently high rates of container traffic growth that they have.

Several reasons have accounted for this, including geography – the port is located some distance from the main east-west shipping channel – political and investment uncertainty in Indonesia, plus the organisation within the port.

The hope is that things will work out differently in the second decade of this century. Firstly, Indonesia does not appear to have been affected as much as several other Far Eastern countries by the recession. Secondly, there are a number of ocean carriers looking at the possibility of calling direct at Jakarta on mainline services. Thirdly, there is talk of the main container terminal operators involved in the port being integrated in the interests of upgrading capacity and improving efficiency. These two operators comprise Jakarta International Container Terminal (JICT) and TPK Koja. The common link is Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), which has a 51% shareholding in the former and a 49% stake in the latter.

John Meredith, the MD of HPH, has gone on record as saying such a move would enable much bigger ships to be handled on account of the longer wharf and wider yard. Potentially bigger ships also means improved economies of scale for the liner companies involved.

Currently, it is estimated that slightly below 40% of JICT's and TPK Koja's total container traffic is direct call mainline in nature.