The Box - Marc Levinson [116]
Singapore was a new country in the late 1960s, having been ejected from Malaysia in 1965 amid armed conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia. Its port was more significant as a military base than as a shipping hub. The British had 35,000 soldiers and sailors on the 226-square-mile island, and 25,000 civilians worked at the bases and the naval shipyards. The commercial port comprised a handful of wharves and Singapore Roads, the anchorage offshore where cargo was transferred from one small trading vessel to another. The amount of general cargo actually crossing the docks was about one-fifth of that handled in New York. The Port of Singapore Authority had been created in 1964 to take responsibility for most of Singapore’s docks, but it had little to work with. The initial value of all of its assets, including apartment complexes and office buildings as well as docks and warehouses, was less than $50 million.41
Immediately upon independence, the new government launched a crash effort to build the economy by drawing foreign investment, especially in manufacturing. Amid a general government crackdown on dissent, the Port of Singapore Authority was able to slash the size of longshore gangs from twenty-seven to twenty-three, institute a second shift, and boost by half the amount of cargo handled per man-hour. It put forth a plan in 1965 to build four berths for conventional ships at a site known as the East Lagoon, which had a breakwater but no major docks. Within months, the plan was scrapped. The containerships that were about to cross the Atlantic had captured the interest of port officials. They announced in 1966 that instead of conventional berths, they would build a port for containers.42
Singapore’s strategy was to use containers to become the commercial hub of Southeast Asia. With a $15 million World Bank loan covering nearly half the cost, the port authority began work on a terminal at which long-distance vessels from Japan, North America, and Europe could hand off containers to smaller ships serving regional ports. Construction started in 1967, the same year that the first containers—3,100 of them, mainly empties—were deposited on the island’s docks. When the British announced in 1968 that their bases and naval shipyards would close within three years, the government countered with even more ambitious plans to build ships, develop industry, and expand the port. “It may be necessary to embark on further construction depending on the build-up of shipping and container traffic,” the Port of Singapore Authority advised, even though its first container project was barely under way.43
When large-scale container shipping finally arrived in Pacific ports beyond Japan, in 1970, the question of whether it would be viable on long-distance routes quickly became laughable. The $36 million East Lagoon complex opened in June 1972, three months ahead of schedule, cementing Singapore’s reputation as an island of efficiency. As the only port in the region with docks long enough for 900-foot containerships, Singapore became a major transshipment point, with third-generation ships handing off containers to smaller vessels that shuttled them to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. With longshore gangs reduced to only fifteen men and with steep charges on boxes left in the new 120-acre container yard for more than three days, the port ran as smoothly as any in the world.44
Singapore’s containerport grew beyond all expectations. In 1971, before the new terminal opened, the Port of Singapore Authority forecast 190,000 containers after