Rotterdam's NileDutch shipping company plans to open its own office in Singapore shortly.
NileDutch Singapore will act as local agent for the company's West Africa service, and will also serve as a regional office for Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Arabian Gulf.
NileDutch operates 19 vessels from various regions around the world to West Africa in general and Angola and Congo in particular.
"This decision must be viewed in a strategic context whereby NileDutch will take full regional control. The company is confident that there is a long-term future in the trade between Asia and West Africa," a company statement said.
The company started serving Singapore 12 years ago as an NVOCC with transshipment of containers in Durban (South Africa) onto its own services. It started direct service between Singapore and various ports in West Africa, including Luanda, Lobito and Namibe in Angola, Matadi in the DRC, and Pointe Noire in Congo Brazzaville in late 2006. NileDutch offers service to the ports of Cabinda (Angola) and Libreville (Gabon) via transshipment through the company's feeder-services.
The opening of the Singapore office follows the fourth quarter 2007 opening of NileDutch representative offices in China. The company also has its own offices in most ports served in West Africa.
During 2008, this niche service from Singapore "will be upgraded to a fortnightly frequency, and Singapore will remain a fixed port of call, also used as transshipment hub for cargoes from southeast Asia origins such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. The ports in Africa each have their own problems, causing for example congestion delays. Therefore the operation is done with geared containerships to reduce these effects," a company release said.
West Africa imports many kinds of goods from Asia, including construction equipment and materials, high-tech consumer goods, basic foodstuffs such as edible oils, condensed milk and rice and household goods.
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