Shipping company NYK Philippines has introduced a weekly direct roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) service in the Philippine province of Batangas, which would serve major Southeast Asian ports, reported Asia Pulse.

NYK Philippines general manager Daniel Ventanilla said their latest service caters to the shipment of completely built-up vehicles for import and export.

"We will be using ro-ro mother ships with capacity for 5,000 cars that will bring cars to Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Batangas,” he said.

Ventanilla said there is a huge possibility that NYK will use Batangas port to connect the service to the Middle East.

He said the port facility, while designed for containerised cargo, is also very profitable for car shipment. The company is taking advantage of it.

Ventanilla said NYK is keen on using Batangas port as it has the capability to handle mother vessels.

Batangas port has an annual capacity of 400,000 TEUs. It offers access to businesses within the Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon economic corridor, which accounts for up to 40 percent of shipments to and from the Ports of Manila.

Operated by Asian Terminals Inc, Batangas port is so far host to only one direct international container shipping line Regional Container Lines (RCL), which started operations last December. A 1,500- to 2,000-TEU RCL vessel calls at Batangas port every Saturday.

Cargonews Asia