THE Super Shuttle Roro 12, the 500-TEU vessel that will be used for the Davao City-General Santos City-Bitung, Indonesia sea trade route, docked in Davao City on Tuesday night, April 11.
The roll-on roll-off (Roro) vessel is set to have its maiden voyage on April 30, 2017, and is expected to be launched by President Rodrigo Duterte and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
In recent weeks, the Indonesian and Philippine Governments have been busy ironing out the final details of the sea route.
On April 7, Indonesia's private sector also met with the officials of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) and the local business community to discuss and explore business opportunities in Mindanao.
During the recent Davao-General Santos-Bitung RoRo Shipping Route Business Forum last February 24, Transportation assistant secretary Fernando Juan Perez urged traders to take full advantage of the sea trade route.
"Hopefully the business sector would see that this trade route is a gold mine. There's so much opportunities here... The Philippines should take advantage of this because Indonesia will definitely take advantage of this," said Perez who is also the chairperson of the Philippine Interagency Task Force on Asean Roro.
The sea trade route is seen to provide Mindanao traders a cheaper and shorter alternative way to reach Indonesia.
With the current route, Mindanao traders have to send their products to Manila then to Indonesia, which will take three to five weeks and will cost around $2,200/TEU while the new sea trade route will only take at least 1.5 days and will cost around $700.
Among the goods that will be traded between the two countries include animal feeds, aqua products, charcoal, coffee beans, construction materials, copra, cordage, corn, feed ingredients, fertilizers, food and beverages, fresh fruits, high value crops, ice cream products, lumbre, matured coconut, meat, peanuts, Halal-certified poultry, soya, sugar, synthetics, and vegetables.
Aside from the Mindanao traders, MinDA deputy executive director assistant secretary Romeo Montenegro, in an earlier interview, said Visayas and Luzon businessmen have also expressed interests to use the route.
"There is also interset coming from the Visayas but so far, those who have given us specifics are producers from Luzon," he said,
adding that the sea trade route will bring down the shipping time of Luzon businessmen and traders to one week from the regular three to five weeks. (With JPA)