Capacity boost as India-Asean trade grows
Lines combine to launch new feeder service
Growing trade between India and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is prompting intra-Asia feeder operators to boost boxship capacity on key routes.
Bengal Tiger Lines (BTL) has joined with mainline operator Mitsui OSK Line (MOL) and Regional Container Line (RCL) to start a new service covering the Thailand to eastern India corridor via Singapore.
Branded RMB, after the partners, the service launches from Laem Chabang on 23 March using three 1,100teu vessels on a fixed-day weekly sailing.
Via the new service, BTL will offer four sailings a week on the Singapore-Chennai trade lane.
“This is partly due to demand from the trade and our in-house customer, MOL,” said Bill Smart, MD of BTL.
“In addition it serves the growing automobile traffic between Bangkok and Tamil Nadu’s assembly lines.”
BTL has also begun direct coverage of the Philippines market, via Taiwan’s Kaohsiung transhipment hub.
A new free-trade agreement between India and the Asean member nations – Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam – came into force at the start of this year, and this has helped bolster economic recovery in Asia, said Smart.
Between 2006 and 2008, trade between the Asean countries and India increased at an average annual rate of 28%, the fastest among Asean’s major trading partners.
Bengal Tiger Lines (BTL) has joined with mainline operator Mitsui OSK Line (MOL) and Regional Container Line (RCL) to start a new service covering the Thailand to eastern India corridor via Singapore.
Branded RMB, after the partners, the service launches from Laem Chabang on 23 March using three 1,100teu vessels on a fixed-day weekly sailing.
Via the new service, BTL will offer four sailings a week on the Singapore-Chennai trade lane.
“This is partly due to demand from the trade and our in-house customer, MOL,” said Bill Smart, MD of BTL.
“In addition it serves the growing automobile traffic between Bangkok and Tamil Nadu’s assembly lines.”
BTL has also begun direct coverage of the Philippines market, via Taiwan’s Kaohsiung transhipment hub.
A new free-trade agreement between India and the Asean member nations – Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam – came into force at the start of this year, and this has helped bolster economic recovery in Asia, said Smart.
Between 2006 and 2008, trade between the Asean countries and India increased at an average annual rate of 28%, the fastest among Asean’s major trading partners.
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