With a Little Help from My Friends: Maritime Capacity Building Measures in Straits of Malacca

Straddling approximately 800km along the east coast of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia and the west coast of peninsular Malaysia is the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s most pivotal seaborne trade lanes. The world’s busiest and longest sea lane used for international navigation, the Malacca Strait hosts over 70,000 ships annually,2 and provides a crucial link between east and west trade. A staggering 15 million barrels of oil - a third of the world’s oil trade - passed along it in 2006.