KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 (Bernama) -- Tricubes Bhd's associate company,Tricubes Suria Sdn Bhd (Trisuria), has been awarded a RM9.183 millioncontract to implement select software, hardware and services for SabahPort Sdn Bhd's integrated Port Management System project.

The project covers the delivery, implementation, handover and support ofan integrated Port Management System, complete with integration withFinancial and Billing systems.

It is expected to be completed by end of 2005, Trisuria executivedirector, Jamaludin Abu Bakar said at a press conference here, Wednesday.

Sabah Port is a special purpose vehicle of Suria Capital Holdings Bhd,which officially took over the operations and management of all ports inSabah since September 2004.

Trisuria is 40 percent-owned by Tricubes Computers (Sabah), which in turnis a 75 percent-owned subsidiary of Tricubes.

Suria Capital Holdings Bhd, which is the parent company for Sabah Port,has a 60 percent stake in Trisuria.

Part of the works, worth RM3.5 million, will be undertaken by Tricube'ssubsidiary, Tricube Consulting,

Jamaludin said that managing Sabah Port's information technology (IT)infrastructure is a stepping stone for Trisuria to be a full fledgedoutsourcing outfit offering integrated IT solutions.

He said that Trisuria aimed to offer its services to companies in Sabahand also the Brunei-Indonesia-Philippines-East ASEAN Growth Area.

Suria Capital group managing director, Abu Bakar Abas, said the prospectsis good for the ports in Sabah.

He said that the Kota Kinabalu port is expected to see a 10 percentincrease in container volume this year, from 143,000 TEUs (20-footequivalent units) registered in 2004.

He said that by mid next year, the container port in Kota Kinabalu willmove operations to Sepangar Bay, which has a capacity of 350,000 TEUs -400,000 TEUs annually, and could be raised to 500,000 TEUs if it improvedits efficiency.

He said that another port with potential is Sandakan port, which isexpected to benefit from growth in the palm oil sector, where Sabah is nowthe biggest player in Malaysia.

Abu Bakar pointed out that by 2010, Sabah is expected to produce 6.0million tonnes of crude palm oil and Sandakan port is within the palm oilindustrial cluster announced by the state government.

-- BERNAMA