KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Relaxing import rules on gantry cranes could see a loss of RM425 million (USD111.87 million) and 1000 jobs for Malaysia, says gantry manufacturer Impsa Malaysia Sdn Bhd chairman Datuk Moehamad Izat Emir.

Mr Moehamad Izat told the New Straits Times that the government had relaxed a 10-year-old policy mandating all port operators to buy only Argentinian-made Impsa gantry cranes.

In that time, Impsa Malaysia had customised more than 50 gantries for Malaysian ports under licence from Impsa Port Systems in Argentina, which owns 40 percent of the Malaysian branch.

Impsa Malaysia, which has more than 80 percent of the Malaysian gantry market, had also customised 25 cranes in a RM500 million (USD131.61 million) contract for various countries, including Indonesia, Taiwan, China, Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia.

In other container-handling news, Finnish crane-maker KCI Konecranes has won a USD9.73 million crane deal with Spain's Terminal de Contenedores de Algeciras SA. The company told Reuters it was the third order received since launching its ship-to-shore crane in September.