MTT Shipping : Moving Your Business Forward
Ooi Lean Hin, Managing Director at MTT Shipping, discusses his company’s competitive advantage in the dynamic Asia market.
Mapai Transport : Life on the Highlands Highway
Behind a leading Papua New Guinea-based freight and transport solutions provider; we discuss operations and ‘the Spirit to Serve’ with Managing Director of Mapai Transport, Jacob Luke.
Access World : World-Class Logistics Solutions for Commodities
Executives from Access World discuss the company’s place within the industry in Asia and the challenges overcome during a disruptive and difficult last few years.
How AI Can Improve Cross-Border e-Commerce Shipping
With the scope of digital transformation limitless, Lionel Berthe, Head of Asia Pacific at Asendia, discusses the potential of AI in the e-commerce supply chain.
PhilExport
Philippines ExportThe Philippines is renowned for its robust export industry, which is on the road to recovery after the shock of the coronavirus pandemic Writer: Dani Redd | Project Manager: Krisha Canlas With its increasing industrialisation and skilled workforce, the Philippines has one of the most dynamic economies in the East Asia Pacific Region. Between 2010 – 2019, the country’s economy has been growing at an average annual rate of 6.4 percent. Its semiconductor and manufacturing industry is the biggest economic growth driver in the Philippines, employing over three million workers directly and indirectly. The Philippines also has a robust, thriving export industry. Unsurprisingly, electronics products are the country’s top export. According to a report by the Filipino government, they accounted for 55.9 percent of total exports between January 2019 and January 2020, with total earnings of $3.23 billion. The same report also showed significant growth in other exports, in particular gold (a 46 percent growth) and other minerals (68.3 percent). However, exports of machinery and transport equipment had contracted by 35.1 percent.Despite such a robust economy, the Philippines exports industry suffered significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, in large part due to the stringent lockdowns imposed on the country to try and control cases – many companies were forced to halt production. In August 2020, exports had tumbled 18.6 percent since the previous year – the fifth consecutive month of decline.Rescue and recoveryUnderstandably, the government and organisations – including PHILEXPORT, which represents around 70 percent of the country’s export revenues – is keen to help the economy and its export industry…
Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA)
Philippines ExportsSpecial economic zones provide attractive business and investment opportunities in the Philippines, increasing the competitiveness of its economy Writer: Dani Redd | Project Manager: Krisha Canlas With its increasing urbanisation, a growing middle class and a young population, the Philippines has one of the most dynamic economies in the East Asia Pacific Region. Its economic dynamism is rooted in strong consumer demand. Notably well-performing sectors include business process outsourcing, real estate, finance and insurance. Between 2010 and 2019, the country’s economy expanded at an average annual rate of 6.4 percent. Improved wages have had a significant effect on household incomes, and poverty rates declined from 23.3 percent in 2015 to 16.6 percent in 2018. Economic growth will significantly decelerate this year due to the impact of COVID-19, but is expected to rebound gradually in 2021 and 2022. This will be helped by robust domestic activity, including an increase in public investment. ----------Facts & figuresType of economy: Newly industrialisedMain products: Electronic products, garments, petroleum products, coconut oilLargest sub-sectors: Industry, services, agricultureGDP: $356.814 billionAnnual growth rate: 6.04 percent (2019)Employment rate: 94.6 (2019)----------Interview: Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Associations play a vital role in representing the interests of their members at an industry and national level. We asked Ms Charito “Ching” B. Plaza of PEZA to find out more about the current state of industry in the Philippines and what it is doing to advance its agendas Philippine Economic Zone Authority – more commonly known as PEZA – was created in 1995 under “The Special Economic Zone Act”. This act established the legal framework to set up economic…
Airports Vanuatu Limited
Paradise Pushed to the LimitAn economy reliant on tourism, the islands of Vanuatu have had to adjust to the economic downturn caused by the major obstacle facing the world in 2020 – COVID-19 Writer: Tom Wadlow | Project Manager: Ryan Gray Vanuatu, despite its remoteness off of the Australian coast, has felt the shockwaves created by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The volcanic archipelago nation is made of six provinces and 83 individual islands home to tropical conditions, white beaches, clear sheltered waters, and coral reefs, some of which harbour wartime US shipwrecks. It has, up to this past year, been a distant yet popular destination for holiday goers and scuba divers around the globe. With no written history pre-colonialisation the islands’ prehistory remain rather obscure. Claimed by the Spanish during the colonial era, the largest of Vanuatu’s islands was renamed Espiritu Santo; a name that has survived to this day. Yet it was much later with the coming of the Second World War that the archipelago changed drastically. Australia had already stationed forces on one of the many islands to protect the mainland from a possible Japanese invasion, and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the US made use of the archipelago to station soldiers, ships, and military planes in newly built airports as a military buffer against potential Japanese forces. One of these airports, built on Santo, remains in the present as one of the three used by Airports Vanuatu Limited (AVL), founded in 2000 as a government entity. Its other airports are based on the island of Tanna,…
Solomon Islands Ports Authority
Maritime MarvelSIPA is charting the Solomon Islands’ progressive, transformative maritime course, its two key ports now standing as crucial pillars of the national economy Writer: Jonathan Dyble | Project Manager: Josh MannThe maritime industry has been instrumental to the development of civilisations through time.Providing humanity with the capacity for cross-continental exploration, mass fishing and greater mobility than land-based travel for trade, transport or warfare, it is understood that the first ships (if you can call them that) were developed many millennia prior to the BC era.Initially consisting of single logs that floated down rivers with small cargo attached to them, greater numbers of logs were eventually strapped together forming rafts to carry larger loads.Fast forward through the centuries and boats gradually became more sophisticated. The Austronesians invented the same oceangoing sailing technologies in 3000 BC that are still used today, allowing them to achieve seaborne migration and establish sophisticated trade routes throughout the Asia Pacific.By 200 AD, records suggest that some ships were capable of carrying 700 people and up to 1,000 tonnes of cargo. Yet these vessels were still a far cry from the sea freighters that we know today.The worlds biggest container ship – the OOCL Hong Kong – currently measures the length of about four football pitches, has a deadweight tonnage of 191,317 metric tonnes, and a capacity equivalent to that of 21,413 standard shipping containers.Albeit impressive, this monumental surge in size is just one facet of the sector that has changed drastically in modern times.Sophisticated marine technologies have been the subject of…
Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group
Keeping the Wheels in MotionKit Loong Commercial Tyre Group is helping companies across Malaysia to remain on the road, its comprehensive offering underpinned by unrivalled expertise, brand partnerships and technology Writer: Tom Wadlow | Project Manager: Josh Mann Roads, despite their comparative antiquity versus the likes of air and rail, are a backbone of commerce. A critical element of a global multimodal transport network that millions of businesses rely on to move goods and people from A to B, highways continue to form key components of industrial strategies adopted by governmental authorities. Malaysia is no different. Home to a mature road network which supports almost all industrial activity, the country is embarking on an improvement drive to make doing business even easier. And progress is being made, both pushed from the government through projects such as the Third Industrial Master Plan (IMP3), as well as businesses who are looking to make Malaysia a competitive hub within Asia. Indeed, the nation is already home to 1.2 million commercial vehicles which rely on its roads to serve their companies, and keeping these cars, vans, trucks and HGVs roadworthy is also big business, the tyre and related services market worth more than RM3 billion ($720 million) a year. For Kenneth Teh, Group MD of Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group, the sector represents a vibrant, fast-moving field of work that is subject to constant evolution. “The increase of imports from China has obviously been a real disruptor to the established world-renowned tyre companies, who still have very strong brand kudos here, but are now…
Inchcape Shipping Services
Global, Local, Transparent By adding a global, technology-enabled layer of transparency to shipping agency operations, Inchcape Shipping Services continues to gain the trust of clients to manage their vessels and cargo the world over Writer: Tom Wadlow | Project Manager: David Knott Around 6,000 years ago Egyptians navigated 100-metre-long boats up and down the Nile. Powered by oars and featuring sails, these wooden vessels carried enormous obelisks and were a serious feat of engineering for their time, so much so that very little evolution in boat mechanics occurred until the advent of steam propulsion. The British East India Company took full advantage of this long-awaited breakthrough, initially using steamships to help manoeuvre large sailing ships into the narrow harbours of India before reducing travel time between Asia and Britain. In 1856 the Company awarded a contract to carry mail between Calcutta and Rangoon to the Calcutta & Burmah Steam Navigation Company, which incorporated in London and became an agent for the new shipping line. This was the work of William Mackinnon, who, together with Robert Mackenzie, formed a general merchanting partnership named Mackinnon Mackenzie & Company (MMC). It is the formation of this company in Calcutta in 1847 that the Inchcape Group proudly traces its origins. Exponentially growing its influence between Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and even Australia, MMC became a crucial enabler of British sea trade, the Inchcape name taking over in the 1950s and continuing to serve as agents for a tremendous array of clients to this very day. But, much like the steamship’s oar- and sail-powered predecessor, the nature of shipping agency interactions…
