Myanmar International Terminals Thilawa (MITT) announced the new weekly intra-Asia service IA7 by Maersk.

Hutchison Ports MITT is Myanmar's first purpose-built international container terminal at Thilawa near the mouth of the Yangon River.

The maiden voyage of MV MAERSK KWANGYANG berthed at MITT on February 22.

 Source: Hutchison's MITT

MV MAERSK KWANGYANG has a deadweight of 37,851 tons and LOA of 186 meters with  2,806 TEU in capacity.

The service is operated with four vessels of similar size and follows the Shantou — Nansha — Yantian — Hong Kong — Tanjung Pelepas — Port Klang(North) — Chittagong — Yangon(MITT) — Kuching — Da Nang-Shantou port of calls.

IA7 is estimated to load and unload around 800 TEU per sailing at MITT.

Boost to Myanmar-Asia trade

Min Kyi, general manager of MITT, said the start of this new service is an indicator of robust trade growth between Myanmar and neighbouring Asian countries.

"Today, about 60% of MITT's services are direct South China-Yangon and using Singapore and Port Klang as transhipment hubs, we foresee that intra-Asian volumes will continue to grow," Kyi noted.

The new service will support the import of raw materials, including CMP-Textile, fertilizers, construction materials and the export of agricultural products, such as rice, yellow corn, rubber and minerals to China, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries.

"In anticipation of this growth, MITT will provide its highest standards of productivity and efficiency to customers to enable faster ship turnaround time, saving line’s inventory cost for empties repositions too," Kyi further said.

Hutchison noted that MITT is the leading international terminal operator in Myanmar and has been successfully providing integrated port services to customers with downstream support of Hutchison Logistics Myanmar.

As the largest container terminal in Myanmar, MITT has been awarded and recognized as a US-CTPAT terminal in Myanmar.

In order to reduce the shipper's logistics cost and upgrade the logistics index of Myanmar, MITT and Hutchison Logistics Myanmar introduced container barging service and train connections to streamline the delivery of containers and reduce road traffic and carbon emissions.

MITT also provides cargo consolidation and CFS to facilitate shippers' need for warehousing and intermodal services via  MITT with multimodal transport modes.