The international project forwarding company has services that include: liner service, ship broking and chartering, shipping agency.

A large percentage of the company’s business is focused in the oil and energy industries and it aims to expand this activity over the medium term.

As part of its expansion, the company established its feeder service between Singapore and Batam.

Joseph Ooi, the company’s managing director said: “Synergy Shipping is only as good as the staff we have and is a strong believer of not just adapting to change, but to also anticipating change.”

Synergy Shipping has adopted an integrated logistics management system to enhance operation effectiveness.

A fully integrated, web-based solution that provides companies with full visibility is available, the company said.

Operations in Singapore for the Batam service are located at Jurong Port with the warehouse at J2.

In Batam, the company has an office that controls sales and operations.

ICTSI reported consolidated revenues of PhP1.9 billion (US$34.4 million) during the third quarter, an increase of 24 per cent over the same period last year.

The strong revenue growth was attributed mainly to the consolidation of new revenues from the Baltic Container Terminal (BCT) of PhP952 million.

ICTSI took over operations of the terminal at the Polish Port of Gdynia in June this year.

Nine-month consolidated revenues grew by 33 per cent, from PhP4 billion in 2002 to PhP5.3 billion as of September 30.

Group wide volume for the third quarter of the year increased 22 per cent, from 349,128 TEU to 426,774 TEU.

ICTSI volumes were boosted by new throughput from BCT of 78,933 TEU which reflected a 25 per cent growth from last year’s volume for the same period. On the year-to-date basis, group volume grew 28 per cent, from 938,042 TEU to 1.2 million TEU.

Cathay carried 1,017,884 passengers in October, up from 951,703 passengers in September, though down 3.5 per cent year-on-year.

The average load factor was 73.9 per cent, almost two percentage points lower than in October last year. However, this dip was in the context of a 2.4 per cent increase in the number of flights operated by the airline.

The airline carried a record 87,275 tonnes of freight in October, up from 75,651 tonnes in September and a 2.4 per cent increase year-on-year.

Cathay Pacific general manager Revenue Management, Sales and Distribution, Ian Shiu, said: “The market shows signs of improvement with more business class and individual, rather than group, travellers, both of which help to stabilise yield.

“General demand is clearly stronger for long-haul services than it is for those operating within the region. However, a significant proportion of customers are still buying seats at the last minute, making it difficult to accurately gauge forward bookings.”

General manager Cargo, Kenny Tang, said: “October’s record figures show that cargo’s traditionally busy fourth quarter is gaining strength as the holiday season draws near.

“Hong Kong’s export market remains robust, particularly on trunk routes to the US, Europe and Japan.”

Both airlines have awarded three-year contracts to Menzies.

MAG will provide a full range of cargo handling services to Air Canada for the airline’s daily Airbus A340 flights that operate from Sydney to Toronto via Honolulu.

In addition, Air Canada operates three Boeing 767 passenger and cargo flights per week during the peak Australian summer season.

Gulf Air Cargo has contracted MAG to handle freight carried on its daily A340 services that link Sydney with Singapore and Bahrain.

Air Canada and Gulf Air are expected to carry up to 15 tonnes per flight on their A340 aircraft.

Ross Marino, general manager of MAG in Sydney, said: “These latest contract gains are a further justification of our investment in Sydney.

“We have significantly increased the capacity of our freight centre and added more airside and landside doors, new pallet handling equipment and storage systems. We also have a new cool room for perishable shipments and enhanced security systems.”

MAG also provides freight handling in Sydney for Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Cargolux and UPS.

This latest phase extends the scope of Cargo 2000′s management system to cover freight forwarder processes for the door-to-door management of consignments at House Waybill level.

The initial phase of the programme focussed on the airport-to-airport cycle.

As part of its long-term commitment to Cargo 2000, Syntegra has built functionality into its route management system (RMS) to support phase two of Cargo 2000′s Master Operating Plan.

James Fernandez, business development manager, air and logistics at Syntegra, said: “Having supported Exel through the phase one accreditation process, this is a further endorsement of Syntegra’s RMS as the best solution to help Cargo 2000′s members fulfill the programme’s requirements.

“Using RMS enables Exel to achieve benefits in a variety of areas including process optimisation, operational service improvement and enhanced management information.”

In order to ensure optimal connections for goods originating in Switzerland, road feeder services are being introduced to the carrier’s hub in Luxembourg.

Initial figures showed that Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung Terminal handled 1.025 million TEU in October, about 5,000 TEU less than that of Shenzhen Port. This is the fifth consecutive month Kwai Chung Terminal has recorded a drop in container throughput.

In the first 10 months of the year, the total throughput for Shenzhen was 8.68 million TEU, up 39.82 per cent over the same period last year.

Yantian accounted for 4.31 million TEU, up 25.87 per cent; Chiwan had 1.31million TEU, a rise of 40.68 per cent and Shekou handled 1.24 million TEU, an increase of 77.67 per cent.

Professor Zheng Tian-xiang of Hong Kong, Macau and Pearl River Delta Research Centre at Zhongshan University said Hong Kong will lose its status as a container transit centre if Shenzhen growth continues at its current level.

He said that although more and more Hong Kong capital is being injected into the port operation, Shenzhen is on the way to increase its total annual capacity to 32 million TEU, which is well ahead of Hong Kong’s 19 million TEU.

Professor Zheng said Hong Kong’s Terminal 9 will add 2.6 million TEU to capacity, but it has already been delayed by two years. He added that space for Hong Kong to increase throughput is very limited.

Revenues were up 0.3 per cent to EUR28.9 billion, while profit from operating activities EBITA (earnings before interest, tax and amortisation) amounted to EUR2.039 billion against last year’s EUR2.141 billion.

The Star group-wide value creation programme has been particularly successful. chairman of the board Dr. Klaus Zumwinkel, said: “The progress made in integrating the group and the cost savings has exceeded our expectations. As a result, we are increasing our forecast for Star’s target earnings for 2003 from EUR350 million to at least EUR400 million.”

In the first nine months, measures implemented as part of the Star value creation programme contributed EUR253 million to earnings, EUR79 million of which was generated in the third quarter, the company said. This brings the total improvement to earnings made to date by the Star programme since its launch in November 2002 to EUR339 million.

The gains are due in particular to organisational improvements at DHL, continuing consolidation of the group’s international data centres, ongoing network optimisation and the successful restructuring of group’s purchasing activities.

Wuhan, one of the river cities located on Chang Jiang, is expected to see substantial future economic growth.

K Line now has 14 bases in China: Shanghai, Dalian, Qingdao, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Suzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Beijing (to be opened on January 1, 2004) and Wuhan.

The new K Line (China) Ltd office in Wuhan is located at room 1605, China Merchants Bank Tower, Number 518 Construction Road, Wuhan, China 430022. Tel: 86-27-59500986, fax 86-27-59500987, email: kchwuh@kch.kline.co.jp or chenwanhui@kch.kline.co.jp

The Guatemala branch will further enhance Yicheng’s development in central America, creating more advantages for its Asia to central America consol services, the company said.

Meanwhile, an interactive system set up by Yicheng between its nearly 50 branches has helped sustain the company’s rapid growth, according to company statistics.