|
Malaysia International Shipping Corporation Bhd remains cautious about the success of the rate restoration exercises being initiated by shipping lines to recover the yield from the fallen freight rates.
Its managing director, Datuk Hj Mohd Ali Yasin said despite the rate restoration exercises initiated by the shipping conference the outlook for the liners sector was not promising as the sector continues to suffer from delivery of new containerships that further exacerbates the excess capacity situation.
"Although the volume of containers carried by MISC Bhd at Port Klang has increased from 186,900 TEUs in 1998 to 280,300 TEUs last year, earnings per box continued to decline due to lower freight rates in nearly all major trading routes," he said.
Freight rates for the Europe trade fell to about RM2,200 per TEU in the first quarter of 2002 compared with RM3,800 in the January-March of 2001.
The rate was more than 70 per cent lower than its rate charged to consignees in the January-March 2001.
Although MISC's lifting to Europe rose by 25 per cent in the trading route, the carrier suffered low earnings from the carriage of the containers in one of its most important liner route.
In fact the contribution of the sector in the January-March this year was almost down by one-third compared with the sector's contribution in the first quarter of last year totaling RM167.96 million.
In the Australasian trade, freight rates were down more than RM600 per TEU over the last 12 months period.
The situation remains same in the Asia trade route with freight rates going down to below RM1,000/teu in the first quarter of this year from RM1,220 per TEU in the corresponding quarter of last year.
Ali said in view of the unsatisfactory returns, the shipping line decided to take steps to rationalize its operations in the affected trading routes.
The shipping line's move included its withdrawal of loss making services and revamping of niche market services.
MISC, which owns and operates a total of 31 containers ship including four chartered container ships, has upgraded its New Zealand service by injecting larger vessels.
The South East Asia/New Zealand Service in partnership with Pacific International Lines has further strengthened MISC's position as the third largest player in the market segment.
The weekly service calls Northport on every Sunday and the full port of rotation covers
Northport, Singapore, Brisbane,
Auckland, Wellington, Nelson,
Lyttelton, Napier, Tauranga and Brisbane.
In October 2001, the national carrier revamped its Indo-India Express into Straits-India Pakistan Service with the Jakarta call dropped and replaced with the call at Karachi in Pakistan.
"The revamped service with weekly connection to India, Pakistan and Sri Lankan ports has pushed up utilization and reduced losses," stressed Datuk Ali.
MISC has also joined the new consortium members comprising K Line and Pacific International Lines to serve the expanding South African market.
The new consortium formed by the three lines replaced the Safari consortium from 1 April 2002.
The service link ports in southern China and the Straits of Malacca ports with Durban and Cape Town in South Africa.
Besides injecting new capacity in the lucrative service route, MISC has also completed revamped and closed some operations.
For instance the Intra Asia Satu and Intra Asia Dua services were revamped into a single service while it closed the loss-making China Gulf Express.
MISC, PIL and Yang Ming Line jointly operated the twice-weekly direct China Gulf Express service.
Despite MISC's decision to pullout from the service, PIL and Yang Ming continued with the service, which connects four major Middle East ports and three ports in China.
However, MISC continues to have a slot (space) sharing arrangement with PIL in the weekly Westbound and East bound service.
In the Malaysian domestic services, fixed day schedules were drawn up and implemented effective fourth quarter of last year.
As a result of the steps taken, the national shipping lines managed to turnaround its domestic services from November 2001 onward.
The Business Unit together with its consortium partners carried and estimated 16 per cent the total Malaysian container throughput and 20 per cent of the total transshipment containers handled at Port Klang in the main transshipment hub for MISC.
The shipping lines also consolidated an rationalized its third party agency representation in North Europe and Mediterranean by reducing the agencies from 15 to 8 to allow for better catchment of cargo and allow for cost reduction synergies.
|
