Singapore's king ... for now

Reports released in late January show that Singapore surpassed Hong Kong to become the world's busiest container port in 2005. Container traffic reached 23.2 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) last year, up 8.7 percent from 21.3 million in 2004.

The question now is whether Singapore can stay on top for long. Singapore faces stiff competition from Malaysian, Thai and Indonesian regional ports—not to mention the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen, whose business is growing at the blistering pace of 20 percent or more a year.