Bangkok-headquartered Regional Container Lines, Inc. (RCL) is expanding its operations in the Philippines in anticipation of further increases in trade, particularly imports, in light of the shifting global supply chains.
Jesus B. Sedano, president and managing director of RCL local subsidiary RCL Feeders Phils. Inc., said in an interview with Logisticsnews.PH that they are opening soon a new route to La Union, the country’s gateway to northern Luzon.
RCL has a total of 39 ships, five of which are deployed in different parts of the country as feeder vessels to Singapore and to the world. Their cargo is mostly imported rice.
During the pandemic, RCL opened the Zamboanga route to ease the difficulty of importers in delivering rice to Mindanao during the pandemic.
“Why do we do this? Again, we want to help our rice importers deliver to their customers in the regions,” he said. They used to load 63 TEUs of rice. “Now, we are moving more than 200 containers,” he said.
The Zamboanga route has also facilitated the transport of raw rubber cargo from Zamboanga to Singapore. Previously, rubber traders had to bring their cargo to General Santos or Davao to Manila before exporting to Singapore.
With the opening of the Zamboanga route, Sedano said the raw rubber products are now directly exported to Singapore, which serves as transshipment port to other Asian countries.
Sedeno noted that most of their routes in the country are lopsided as they only bring in imports with very little backload, except their empty containers.
Iloilo used to be a very lopsided revenue route with no export, but is now exporting as much as 40 TEUs of flour products from a huge flour mill in the province. The specialty flour exports go to Malaysia and even Vietnam.
RCL also delivers construction materials to the provinces.
Aside from Zamboanga and Iloilo, the company also has presence in Manila, Batangas, Davao, Subic, Cebu, General Santos, and Cagayan de Oro.
In Asia, they have presence in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Korea, and Japan, Africa, Middle East, and recently in Mexico.
