This research purposely conducts to identify Malaysian role in port bilateral diplomacy in ASEAN. Malaysia known as role leader in ASEAN and commit with excellence, drive the country among ASEAN since 1969. The research included Malaysia role within maritime working group where this forum or organization discuss and negotiate any issue related maritime sector in ASEAN. The research also highlights in Port Enhancement and Malaysia Port Strategic whereas Port Development in Malaysia that contribute to Port Bilateral, Port Alliance and Port in ASEAN. The objective includes i) to identify the issues and challenges in bilateral diplomacy in port shipping, ii) to identify Malaysian marine department role toward integrating ASEAN Maritime Working Group, iii) to find out Malaysian initiative for enhancement Malaysian Port Development through ASEAN port alliances, iv) to formulate Malaysia Port Strategic Plan toward the development of national port ASEAN port Alliances. For the literature review in this research is refer to five keywords which is Port Alliances, maritime working group, Malaysia contribution, Malaysia Port Development and Port Strategic Plan. This research is using qualitative method that refer to previous research, article, and journal. The collecting data consist of text transcribe form interview session into verbal and text written. There are selected organization such as Ministry of Transport and Port Authority. The interview process through online using Webex. The coding process take afterward for analysis and conclusion data. The theory formulation of relation diplomacy for this research is propose the objective to formulate Malaysia port strategic plan toward the development of national port ASEAN. Finally, the finding of this research that Malaysia plays significant role in port operation through ASEAN regional. The ministry of Transport plays as policy maker and drive the actor form Malaysia Marine Department and Port Authority in operation and regulatory. The recommendation is to increase the effectiveness of communication and enhance the efficiency of relation toward port bilateral.

In order to improve the overall ASEAN maritime transport network, each port's efficiency is regarded as a crucial factor that should be calculated periodically. This study evaluated the relative efficiency of container port operations of 32 ports belonging to 9 ASEAN nations using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It found that 2 out of 32 ports in 2010 were measured as efficient ports. This study yielded two major findings. Firstly, the ports assessed as inefficient need to benchmark similar ports in size and structure from the ports that are assessed as efficient to improve their efficiency. Secondly, these results could be used to determine potential candidates and country for an international port development co-operation programme with Korea to improve the performance of the entire ASEAN port network by developing the infrastructures of ill-equipped ports.