Marina Bay Cruise Center Singapore, the city-state's second cruise terminal, officially opened on Monday, effectively double the country's berth capacity to four.

The 28,000-square-meter terminal, which is built at a cost of 500 million Singapore dollars (409.8 million U.S. dollars) and operated by the SATS-Creuers Cruise Services, is expecting over 70 ship calls from now till next March, which will translate into passenger traffic of more than 200,000.

In this May, the terminal welcomed its first ship named Voyager of the Seas. With a capacity of 3,840 passengers and 1,176 crew, it was the largest ever to homeport in Singapore.

The terminal has the capability to dock ships of up to 220,000 gross register tonnage and measuring up to 360 meters in length with a hull draft of up to 11.5 meters. It also has a spacious arrival and departure hall comprising 80 check-in counters and up to 40 immigration counters, as well as a large ground transportation area, which allow the handling of up to 6,800 passengers at any one time.

"Southeast Asia itself has great potential for cruise tourism," said the city-state's Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean at the opening ceremony. "Singapore's location in the center of this exciting maritime region makes it a natural hub to catalyze the growth of the cruise industry," he said, quoted by local paper The Straits Times.

Teo also added that the global cruise industry is projected to grow at an annual compounded rate of 7.4 percent to reach 22.4 million cruise passengers by 2015.

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