Impact of COVID-19 on Turnaround Time at Singapore Ports

Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked the Minister for Transport (a) what is the turnaround time at our wharves in the past six months compared to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period; (b) whether the increase in throughput in the last quarter is expected to improve this year; and (c) how has the recent blockage at the Suez Canal affected Singapore and how can more resiliency to such future incidents be built into the system.

As the world’s busiest transhipment port, the Port of Singapore has not been spared from the global disruptions caused by COVID-19. Congestion in upstream ports has caused vessels to arrive off-schedule in Singapore, leading to bunching and causing more peaks and troughs in port operations. If containers miss their onward connections, they have to stay longer in port yards and the port will need to establish new connections, re-plan and execute cargo movements. Turnaround times are inevitably affected.

To manage the situation, PSA has opened up more berths and yards for port operations and deployed more port workers. As we are a highly digitalised port, PSA is also able to support owners to track their cargo closely to manage delivery schedules and expedite connections for urgent cargo.

Notwithstanding the disruptions, overall global demand remains strong. Container throughput at our port increased in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020. It is however difficult to predict if this trend can be sustained, given various uncertainties before us.

The recent Ever Given blockage at the Suez Canal aggravated the disruption to shipping schedules. Fortunately, the situation has been manageable for Singapore. Last month, PSA cleared the backlog of 45 ships which arrived late due to the blockage. We thank our workers and industry partners for working closely together to successfully tackle this challenge.

Throughout this period, our port has shown to be resilient. This is due to the capabilities we have built up over many decades. Hence, when crisis struck, we were able to enhance our operating protocols and measures to keep our port open while reducing the risk of virus transmission. These include contactless container operations, crew change protocols, vaccinations of frontline workers and regular testing.

Having said that, we cannot totally eliminate risks, and from time to time, we do discover infections. Most are imported cases from foreign workers coming to work in our port. They are isolated on arrival and most are detected while in isolation and do not pose a high risk of community transmission.

There have been suggestions that we should not bear this risk and should instead ban the entry of foreign workers altogether. But we need these workers to keep our port working. That is why we have instead implemented various measures such as isolation, testing and strict safe management measures when they are working in our port, so that we can protect Singapore’s supply lines.