Competitiveness of seaport is determined by a range of advantages that was earned by the seaport to attract their respective customers. Competitiveness is essential for seaport to make tactical plans, to maintain and improve their attractiveness among the clients. The imbalance of hinterland connectivity in Malaysian seaports between road and rail affects the efficiency of Malaysian seaports to be at the optimum level of competitiveness. Besides, the increasing of vessel capacity in the world affects the efficiency of seaport operations to accommodate larger container ships. However, nowadays the trends of seaport competitiveness are changing due to the dynamic nature of maritime business. Hence, analysis on the trend on seaport competitiveness is very crucial to plan and execute the operational strategy to achieve optimum benefits from the trade activities. Nevertheless, most of the researches focused on competitiveness trend in the world but no specific research has been conducted at Malaysian seaports in particular. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the evolution of seaport competitiveness in Malaysian seaport from 1970 to 2019 and propose a competitiveness cluster for Malaysian seaport to ease the policy revisiting procedure for future development. Systematic Literature Review (SLR) has been employed in this paper to develop a comprehensive competitiveness cluster for Malaysian seaports to understand the current trend of competitiveness among Malaysian seaports in comparison to the global trend as a key preparation for future demand. IT application, seaport services, supply chain, government policy, connectivity, availability, hinterland accessibility, inland terminal cost, transportation network, operation efficiency and seaport cost are the key components of competitiveness in Malaysian seaports from 1970 until 2019. Findings revealed that there are three clusters in Malaysian seaport competitiveness which are shipping services, seaport and terminal, and government policy.

Abstract
1.0 Introduction
    1.1 Background of Study
    1.2 Current issues in Malaysian seaports
2.0 Global Trend of Seaport Competitiveness
    2.1 Trend of Competitiveness in Malaysian seaports
3.0 Methodology
4. Result and discussion
6. 0 Recommendation and Conclusion
References

• Zaliani Zainal(Faculty of Maritime Studies, University Malaysia Terengganu)
• Jagan Jeevan(Faculty of Maritime Studies, University Malaysia Terengganu)