In major review of its worldwide hub network operations, Compagnie Maritime d’Affretement – Compagnie Generale Maritime (CMA-CGM) has announced that it has selected Westport, at Port Klang as its Asian hub.

The French-based shipping group, which has still not made up its mind of a similar hub in the Mediterranean as well in northern Europe, announced this as part of its vigourous expansion plans that includes a number of newbuildings to boost its fleet strength.

An integral part of its strategy to employ Westport as its Asian hub follows its request for priority berthing arrangement for its vessels.

The executive chairman of Klang Multi Terminal Sdn Bhd, the concessionaire operator of Westport Tan Sri Datuk G Gnanalingam confirmed that the shipping group had sought priority berthing arrangement with guaranteed minimum throughput.

The shipping line which last year handled about 200,000 TEUs or 20 per cent of Westport’s total throughput, looks set to handle about 350,000 TEUs this year, consiting largely of transshipment containers.

"We are confident of handling about 500,000 TEUs by end of next year and in view of that we are looking forward to have a priority berthing arrangement with Westport," said the senior vice president purchasing and foreign flag fleet department, Captain Kevork Hekimian.

"We are committed to Port Klang and the deployment off our biggest carriers, CMA CGM Balzac in the French Asia Line (FAL) service further re-affirmed our commitment to Port Klang as the transhipment hub," said Capt Hekimian.

The 6,500 TEUs capacity CGM Balzac, the first in the series of the new class of vessels, called at Westport two weeks ago as part of its Asia-Europe run.

Capt Hekimian said to further strengthen our transhipment hub vision, the shipping line has initiated two additional feeder network connection from Port Klang and this will raise our total services to eight.

“Our Westport -Jakarta direct shuttle service will start by middle of this month with a 350-teu carrier while the Bangkok-Westport shuttle service will commence in July 2001,” he added.

The shipping group’s representative in Malaysia, Kamal Wijayasinghe said the dedicated feeder connections would further increase its volume of transhipment at Port Klang.

“Currently almost 70 per cent of our volume of Port Klang consists of transhipment traffic," he said.

Meanwhile, the group managing director, Farid T Salem, who was in Kuala Lumpur recently said CMA would be increasing its seven direct services per week to 10 sailings per week and this would increase its handling volume by 30 per cent to 300,000 TEUs this year.

“To further strengthen our transshipment hub vision, we are willing to operate a dedicated facility at Westport for the next two decades,”said Salem.

This commitment was by Salem when he called on the Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamed during his visit.

Salem said he is confident that CMA’s volume would increase to 500,000 containers in the next two years, especially from the anticipated high growth in transshipment traffic.

In another development, CMA CGM’s global ambitions took an important step forward with the French carrier announcing three new services to South America.

The expansion to South America follows a successful co-operative agreement with Chile’s Compania Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV), which will be allocating some of its existing capacity to the French line.

This follows CSAV’s recent entry in the Europe/Asia trades through an arrangement with CMA CGM after the Chilean line had bought Norasia, the French carrier’s former joint venture partner. 

CMA CGM will inaugurate the new service between the US east coast and South American east coast, the Americas service between the US east coast and South American west coast, and the Good Hope Express service between Asia and the east coast of South America via South Africa, at the beginning of next month.

The decision to mount the new service reflects the rapid expansion by CMA CGM’s and in particular in its plans to have a worldwide presence.

CMA handled approximately 1.6 million TEUs in its 35 services calling 192 ports around the world. The latest additions to CMA CGM’s service portfolio are an important advance in the carrier’s plans to have a worldwide presence.