In the beginning, George Town was a trading port. It strongly linked the Malay Peninsula to resource-rich areas in South-east Asia and the European market in the period of booming spice trade. Under British colonization until 1957, it functioned as a free port where goods could be traded without the imposition of taxes, duties or tariffs.
In 1970, however, its free port status was officially removed, and with that began the waning of the city’s significance on the seafaring route. Penang’s economy shifted away from the port area to the south, to Bayan Lepas, which later came to be known as the Silicon Valley of the East.
Many of the inner city’s businesses, which were very port-centric, were devastated. Stevedoring and ship chandelling services were among them. In 1985 the Penang Port Labour Board, which regulates the entry of all port labor for Penang port, trimmed down its workforce to promote higher productivity and greater efficiency.1 Many historic communities who owed their origins to port operations – which provided jobs for stevedores and ship chandlers – gradually vanished when port operations shifted almost entirely to Province Wellesley and when barter trade ceased in the 1980s.2
