Improvement of performance of container terminal TPK Bitung has encouraged some shipping lines to open oceangoing direct service, thus supporting the products of North Sulawesi to be directly exported.
Today, (Thursday, February 8, 2023), the Provincial Government of North Sulawesi released direct export of fishery products for the first time to Xiamen, China. These commodities were firstly shipped by SITC’ vessel – MV Batangas – that serve route of Davao-Bitung-Xiamen.
On his remark speech for this direct export release, North Sulawesi Vice Governor Steven Kandouw said proudness, saying it as an extraordinary breakthrough. He appreciated support and collaboration of any involved stakeholders in realizing it.
“Thanks to all of us. Finally, we are able to overcome any bottlenecks we faced in the past in realizing our vision to directly export our products from our owned gateway (TPK Bitung). This is an extraordinary breakthrough. We are all so proud of this,” Steven Kandouw said.
He calls all stakeholders, especially the local government, to socialize and disseminate this service to any hinterlands throughout the province, in a bid to keep this service sustain in the future.
TPK Bitung Terminal Head Teguh Firdaus explained that this remained the first time for TPK Bitung to handle direct export for the last 10 years. He declared the readiness of the terminal in view of its adequate facilities and the system transformation that has been improved in the last year two years.
In serving the export of MV. SITC Batangas that loaded/unloaded 365 TEUs containers, TPK Bitung would deploy 2 units of quay container crane (QCC), 3 units rubber tyred gantry crane (RTG), and 10 head trucks.
“With these facilities, our BSH (box/ship/hour) reached 34.5 box. So, the process will be less than 10 hours, thus the port stay will shorter,” he said.
According to the plan, this direct service will be monthly regular. Hence, this requires good collaboration among various parties in a bid to sustain the service.
TPK Bitung, Teguh said, would collaborate with shipping companies to carry out joint marketing, both for domestic and international containers. “We continue to improve our transformation in operation and service, thanks to the support of any parties,” he said.