Medan (eight left) and other officials pose in front of the MV SITC KOBE at BICT on Wednesday.
BINTULU: Bintulu International Container Terminal (BICT) enhances its global shipping connectivity by receiving the maiden voyage of SITC KOBE CPX & Service to Shanghai, Ningbo and Xiamen in China.
This comes as MV SITC KOBE, the container vessel of SITC Container Lines Co Ltd (SITC), made its maiden voyage call at BICT of Bintulu Port on Wednesday.
The vessel arrived in Bintulu via a direct call from Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen and berthed alongside BICT at 10am. It departed for Kota Kinabalu at 11pm.
Bintulu Port Holdings Bhd (BPHB) in a statement yesterday said the maiden call earmark the launching of another direct shipping service by SITC known as China Philippine Express Service 7 (CPX7) that connect BICT to several major ports within the Intra Asia Trade Route.
“This shipping service will be the second service call by SITC at BICT and will complement the existing service call of China Malaysia Indonesia Service (CMI),” the group said in a statement yesterday.
To note, the routing for CPX7 Service is Bintulu – Kota Kinabalu – Cagayan – Xiamen – Shanghai – Ningbo – Cebu -Bintulu. MV SITC DANANG and MV Bright Laem Chabang will call BICT on a weekly basis with allocated windows on Wednesday every week.
Bintulu Port Group officers led by its group chief executive officer Dato Mohammad Medan Abdullah and its chief operating officer Omar Salleh, together with SITC representative, Seo Young Taek, managing director of SITC Shipping Asia Pte Ltd and Xu Xiaoming Office manager of SITC Container Lines (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd were present to receive the vessel.
SITC Container Lines, being one of the leading Intra-Asia container lines, made its inaugural call to Malaysia, at BICT, Bintulu Port back in September 2014.
This marked the first ever direct call for SITC to a Malaysian port. Since then, SITC Container Lines has become one of the major shipping lines that contributes to Bintulu Port’s container throughput which connected Bintulu direct to Intra-Asia market which include China, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.
The direct shipping connectivity from Bintulu to Intra Asia Ports by SITC will help to benefits the manufacturers in Sarawak and Sabah especially Samalaju Industrial Park’s investors within Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) in terms of shorter transit time and cost effective logistic arrangement.
Last year, BICT achieved the highest container growth rate among Malaysian Ports with 13 per cent growth making a total of 349,792 TEUs and achieved the biggest volume in East Malaysia.
BICT is recognised by the shipping lines as one of the most efficient and liable Container Terminal in Malaysia.
The selection of Bintulu Port by SITC for this service signifies their confidence in Bintulu Port operational performance with efficient services and improved container facilities delivery.
There is potential volume of containers that can be diverted to Bintulu Port for transhipment to Intra Asia trade route.
Bintulu Port Sdn Bhd (BPSB) and SITC will work together especially on joint marketing effort to attract container volume in order to capitalised this CPX7 service.
BPSB appreciated SITC’s effort in making this second service call a reality and will continuously improve its services and facilities to ensure all customers received shortest port turnaround time as possible.
The presence of SITC second call provides more frequent direct shipping connectivity and extra space capacity to the Intra Asia Trade via Bintulu Port.
This, in turn, will give extra options for shippers here in selecting main line operators for the logistic arrangements of their cargoes direct to the import and export destination.