Mike | Sep 15, 2011 10:37AM EDT
MCC Transport may expand its presence in Asia’s cabotage market after purchasing its third vessel this year, increasing the Intra-Asia carrier's fleet to 56 charter ships.
“We are looking into whether we can apply what we have learned in the Philippines to other countries,” said MCC CEO Tim Wickmann. “Indonesia, Vietnam and even the Taiwan-China trade could be relevant in such cases, but it takes a lot of preparation and good local partners
MCC, part of the A.P. Moller Maersk Group, has been running container services on domestic trades in the Philippines for four years using its own vessels under the MCC brand.
Operating under cabotage laws, the PH2 service provides two cross-island loops, which serve domestic trades and also feed into main haul services at Manila.
Six months ago the company, which usually charters rather than purchases vessels, bought two 700 20-foot equivalent container units ships for use in the Philippines. Both secondhand ships are dry docked in Subic as per class requirements and will join the trade later in the year.
MCC’s most recent vessel acquisition is registered in Indonesia and could be deployed on cabotage trades.
Although no decision has yet been made, Wickmann said he was “a big fan of Indonesia’s out ports,” which have increasingly generated traffic in recent years as the economy had grown.
“We are interested in Indonesia’s vast potential,” he said. “Three months ago we started a service through third party agency representation in Banjarmasin and Samarinda with connection being made to our Intra Asia services in Jakarta and Surabaya.
“One of our feeders will this week start calling Merak, close to Jakarta, which will connect in Tanjung Pelepas to the rest of the world for MCC, Maersk Line and any other carriers who wish to use the service.”
-- Contact Mike King at michael@borderline.eu.com