DAVAO CITY—Businesses from both the Philippines and Indonesia could still hardly provide the volume to sustain the recently opened and the only roll-on, roll-off (Roro) cargo shipping in the Celebes Sea, the sea-lane that once saw a regular barter trading between Filipino, Muslims and Indonesian traders for centuries.
The first trip from here in April last year, with a stopover in General Santos City and on to the international port of Bitung in the western group of islands of Indonesia, carried only five 20-footer container vans from one flour and animal feeds company.
Kim Pancho, Davao City branch manager of the Super Shuttle Roro 2, said there were two other ships that succeeded the launch, witnessed by Philippine President Duterte and Indonesian President Joko Widodo. It was stopped for failure to get more shippers.
“We would be mounting another one this year,” Pancho told the BusinessMirror, as he promised to provide the details of the three shipping ventures done last year and to talk further on the planned shipping this year. He did not reply to succeeding follow-up inquiries, though.
Product aggregator
THE Indonesian consulate here disclosed late last year that a Manado City, Indonesia-based shipping company dispatched a 256-TEU KM Gloria 28 boat to pick up from where the Super Shuttle Roro 2 has taken a rest.
The boat did not call port in General Santos City though, for lack of volume, but passed through another port in North Sulawesi and on to Bitung. The shipping was made last October and carried a better cargo volume than the April 2017 inaugural shipping of Super Shuttle Roro 2. The cargo from here consisted of agriculture products and Christmas lights, while the return shipping from Bitung carried agriculture products also and furniture.
Consul General Berlian Napitupulu said a smaller boat would have made a difference for practical reasons instead of the 500-twenty-footer-equivalent-unit (TEU) ferry boat.
He said the Cebu City-based Asian Marine Transport Corp. should either use a smaller boat, maybe half the 500 TEU like that of the KM Gloria 28, or revert to the first plan to use the 7,000-tonnage ferry with a capacity of 100 TEU. This smaller ferry has a top speed of 13.5 knots.
With a miniscule volume, a shipper would not fully enjoy the promise of cheaper shipping cost of the Davao-General Santos-Bitung direct route offered, from $2,200 for dry 20-foot container van on the only existing route, the Manila-Jakarta-Bitung route.
The Celebes Sea route cuts down shipping time to only one and a half days and one half, and subsequently a cheaper rate for cargo to only $700.
But Napitupulu would also suggest tapping a consolidator, or an aggregator of products from various businessmen or sources. Through this method, a trip could expect a better volume turnout and allow small businesses to engage in shipping their small-quantity load through combining similar products from other businessmen. The same should be done also in the Indonesian side, “especially that we have almost similar products.”
Corporate turfing
A BUSINESS leader here informed the BusinessMirror, however, that the Roro shipping and, probably, the two decades of negotiation on trading in the Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia the Philippines-East Asean Growth Area may be tied down by corporate turf control.
“It’s a play by corporate giants headquartered in their capitals. It’s like Mindanao, for so long and until now, is undeniably a market of corporations based in Manila. Bitung and other cities in Indonesia are the market of Jakarta-based corporate giants,” said the business source, who requested that he not be named on issues that might touch sensitive corporate chords and diplomatic efforts to strike a continuous coherence in differences in customs, immigration, quarantine and security.
“You could not imagine a big player in Manila yielding his market in Davao City or anywhere in Mindanao, to a supplier from Indonesia. Nor could it be different for a big business from Jakarta with sizeable supply arrangement with Bitung businesses,” the source added. The Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry said some members were awaiting favorable news of another Roro shipping that may carry products like cement to capitalize on the construction binge in the city.
“Unfortunately, this is not within the concept of Roro shipping where one single product would occupy one trip,” said Arturo Milan, the chamber president. He added some businessmen may want to ship bigger items, like feeds, “but they were discouraged by documentary requirements on the side of Indonesia.”