China-Bangladesh market heating up

China-Bangladesh market heating up    Liner carriers will this month offer two direct links between Bangladesh and China, when MCC Transport and PIL start services between Chittagong and Chinese ports.
   American Shipper reported Tuesday that Singapore-based PIL plans to offer a service with a rotation connecting Chittagong with Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Singapore, and Laem Chabang.
   However, the report failed to mention that MCC (the Singapore-based intra-Asia specialist subsidiary of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group) announced in early August its own loop connecting Chittagong with Shanghai, due to start over the weekend.
   American Shipper affiliate ComPair Data shows no existing direct services between China and Bangladesh, a growing exporter of finished and raw apparel and textiles.
   PIL currently operates three feeders between Bangladesh and Singapore/Malaysia, providing three of the four ships deployed on the three services. APL, another Singapore-based line, provides the other ship and takes slots on the other two services, with Advance Container Lines taking slots on all three feeders.
   MCC operates its own feeder between Chittagong and Maersk’s regional hub in Tanjung Pelepas. It also takes slots on a Sea Consortium-Gold Star feeder connecting Chittagong with Singapore and Port Kelang.
   ‘I question PIL’s success at the outset on a China-Bangladesh service, since they have rarely increased capacity for the three services they already share on the Southeast Asia-to-Chittagong route,’ said ComPair Data researcher Kim Williams. ‘It is possible that PIL may convince APL to join them on a China-Chittagong venture, but that is as far as my speculation goes.’
   MCC’s service, according to the line, will have a rotation of Shanghai, Tanjung Pelepas, Chittagong, Port Kelang, Tanjung Pelepas, Singapore, and Shanghai. It’s due to start Sept. 11 from Shanghai.
   ‘For MCC to start in Shanghai will likely feed the hub and profits along the way,” Williams said. “It may be hard for PIL to compete with that, since Maersk and MCC have a strong presence in Shanghai.’
   That stronger presence is based on MCC’s feeder network as well as capacity on Maersk’s long-haul services from Asia to Europe.
   Meanwhile, ComPair Data Chief Analyst Francis Phillips said the dearth of direct connections from Bangladesh has in the past been down to lack of reliability at its ports.
   “Up to now Chittagong has been notoriously congestion prone and unreliable, so it has been operationally preferable to isolate it from longer loops by transshipping over somewhere in the Straits or Colombo,” he said. “It may simply be that MCC is now better organized in Chittagong and can risk offering a direct China service. Should Chittagong relapse, it can always revert to transshipment via Tanjung Pelepas.” ‘ Eric Johnson