Logistics company Pan-Asia Silk Road Ltd (PAS) to establish China-EU rail link
May 11 2023
Transporting a large volume of products from Thailand to China can be done via road, sea, or rail, each at a different cost and within a different timeframe. Today, however, an increasing number of exporters are interested in rail transport from the hub at Map Ta Phut station in Rayong province.
With the newly opened Thailand-Laos-China route, freight trains from Thailand can travel 3,453 km. to Guangzhou, China in just four and a half days, making it a transport mode that is both safe and cost-efficient.
Terapong Techasathian, Assistant Chief Operation Officer at Pan-Asia Silk Road Ltd, said that on April 23 the company set the record by transporting 25 containers of durians from Thailand to China via the Map Ta Phut-Guangzhou route. The train arrived at the destination in 4 and a half days, quicker than the original estimate of six days.
PAS is operating in partnership with Thai state enterprises State Railway of Thailand (SRT) and PTT Plc.
PAS is using state-of-the-art containers made by CIMC, a Chinese partner whose containers have been certified for use in China. CIMC’s containers specifics include:
1. Status of each individual container can be checked online via GPS, including its location, temperature, trajectory, and the products inside.
2. The interior temperature of the container can be regulated within a range of – 30C to + 30C, temperature can be remotely adjusted during transportation.
3. Each container logs transport records for up to two years via the cloud system, which can be viewed from anywhere for business analysis.
4. The containers are equipped with an alarm system that detects unusual activity/temperature or when the container is opened before the schedule. The company will be immediately notified so that it can fix the issue promptly.
The Map Ta Phut-Guangzhou train leaves Map Ta Phut station in Rayong at 10am and arrives at the Nong Khai border with Laos at 4am the next day. The train will then enter Vientiane Logistics Park (VLP) at Thanaleng station at around 6-7 am and undergo customs procedures before the containers are unloaded onto trains suited to the 1.435-metre gauge used in Laos and China.
VLP is a PAS partner that is 30% owned by the Laotian government.
“Normal trains usually take 2-3 days to travel from Rayong to Nong Khai, but freight trains with 25-30 containers can reach Thanaleng station in just 14 hours,” Terapong said.
Rail is the fastest and safest way. Sea transport will take 15 days while trucks take 8-9 days, as they have to queue up at China’s custom checkpoints that can only process 200-300 vehicles per day due to inadequate staffing. “Meanwhile, the customs process for trains in China takes only 3-6 hours,” he said.
PAS also plans to increase trains from Rayong to China from the current four per day to 25, as well as increasing containers from 250 to 1,000 per day by the end of this year.
“To cope with increasing orders, we are planning to procure 2,000 more containers with additional investment by both the company and partners, most of whom are promoted by the Chinese government,” he added. PAS estimates an increasing number of Thai entrepreneurs will use the rail system for product transport in the near future, especially among exporters of durians to China.
“Besides fruits, Thai exporters can also transport other products to China such as plastic beads, rubber, and frozen seafood, while the trains can also carry imported products from China such as electronic components, fertilisers, vegetables and fruits on the way back,” said Terapong.
PAS’s other partners include Asia Express Logistic Ltd, Oriental Merchant Express Ltd, Yuxinou, Eternal Asia, China Railway Express Ltd and Guangzhou Communication Investment Group Ltd. The company plans to expand its logistics network to cover destinations in Russia and Europe in the future.
https://www.nationthailand.com/business/corporate/40027506
“K” LINE opens New General Dry Warehouse in Bangkok
Ryan Finn – May 2, 2023
Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. (“K” LINE) has announced the opening of a new warehouse in the Bang Na district of Bangkok by its Thailand-based group company K LINE CONTAINER SERVICE (THAILAND) LTD.
The new warehouse is situated in a prime location 30 km from Bangkok’s city centre, the largest consumption area in Thailand. It is designed to handle e-commerce products, and instead of dispatching products on a per-pallet or per-case basis as before, it can dispatch products on a per-item basis more swiftly. Multi-level racks that take advantage of the 15-meter-high ceiling have been installed for this purpose. Furthermore, with the installation of a 15-meter-wide canopy that can store a large variety of products in small quantities, the warehouse has been fully equipped with an all-weather cargo entrance and exit. KCST has also obtained four ISO certifications (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 28000) at its existing warehouses and plans to obtain those certifications for the new warehouse within the year.
“K” LINE has been operating regular warehouses and freezing and refrigerating warehouses with close ties to the community in Thailand for over three decades. We have provided logistics services by situating each warehouse in a prime location, such as on the outskirts of Bangkok, within an industrial zone with a high concentration of Japanese companies, at Suvarnabhumi Airport and near Laem Chabang, one of Thailand’s major ports.
In addition, BANGKOK COLD STORAGE SERVICE, LTD. (BCS), another Group company located on the same premises, is in the process of constructing a new freezing and refrigerating warehouse due to open this summer (expected in August 2023).
Port Authority of Thailand aiming high
FRIDAY, March 31, 2023
Kriengkrai Chaisiriwongsuk, director general of the Port Authority of Thailand (PAT), explains how PAT and partnerships, ‘work like a charm’ to drive PAT to the global stage.
Kriengkrai has completed his first year as the PAT director general. He strongly believes in his next step to transform the organisation into a world-class port with excellent logistics services.
Kriengkrai, who is in his late 40s, was appointed to the organisation on February 1, 2022.
“In the last 72 years, PAT has improved its facilities and preparedness to become a world-class port. This year, PAT is strongly committed to the development of overall basic infrastructure and port operating systems to support international competitiveness, and the capacity expansion of its ports to accommodate increasingly large modern container vessels,” he said.
In his first year at PAT, Kriengkrai brought quick performance results to the organisation’s original strategy. For the first time in history, PAT recorded a milestone by handling combined container throughput for Bangkok Port (BKP) and Laem Chabang Port (LCB) of 10 million TEUs.
He said if PAT’s transformation shall be made, attention will have to be paid to three keyfields – employee mindset, business process and digital and technology innovation. The full adoption of technology will transform BKP from a conventional port into a hybrid port first and eventually to an automated smart port.
Other projects are detailed design improvement of the port by adding new formats to support different target groups, creating a distribution centre to accommodate the smart port in linking logistics by sea, road, and rail, and reducing transportation costs by increasing shipments.
In the past year, rail transport under the “Single Rail Terminal Operator Project” delivered a higher cargo volume of 100,000 TEUs.
Bangkok and Laem Chabang Ports were inspected under the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), audit results showed adherence to standards, being in line with the IMO’s regulation Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS). IMSAS’s key function is to build a regulatory framework for the shipping industry that is fair and effective, universally adopted and implemented.
https://www.nationthailand.com/business/corporate/40026169
