Full shipping hire service

A ship hire service will soon be available in the South Pacific leasing container ships, containers and cranes to shipping companies. The services will be offered by an Australian sub sidiary of Sea Containers Inc, of which Mr Arvid Rasmussen, of Syd ney, will be managing director.

Mr Rasmussen was traffic manager of Karlander in Sydney for four and a half years and resigned to take up his new position on September 1.

Sea Containers Inc is already in the South Pacific. It chartered the Tarros class container ship, Union South Pacific, to the Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, to operate a container service from Auckland to Fiji and Samoa, The Union South Pacific, by the end of August, had made four trips to Suva, Lautoka, Apia and Pago Pago. According to a USS Co spokes

man in Sydney, physically it is work ing well. However, the company still has to work out the economics of the operation before making any decision about extending the charter of the Union South Pacific, or chartering an additional Tarros ship. But it is satisfied with the speed at which the ship can unload—eight containers an hour. One small problem at present is a shortage of containers.

The Sea Containers Inc group owns 17 container ships of various sizes, and all are on lease. It has close to 40,000 containers, and four shore-side container cranes out on lease.

Sea Containers Inc is a United States company, of which the Austra

lian operation, covering Australia,

New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific, will be a subsidiary.

It has a new ship building programme in progress.

Franspac Under

Congress Fire

Transpac Lines Inc is not providing jatisfactory services to the US Trust Ferritory from Japan and the US west eoast, allege US TT parliamentarians.

Both Houses of Congress are in stigating the services by their com nittees on resources and develop ment. Mr Sasauo Haruo, of Truk, ehairman of the House of Representa ives Committee, said after a recent oint meeting of the committees, there lad been a steady decrease of service md a steady increase in shipping eosts in Micronesia since the creation }f MILI, which was later reorganised nto Transpac.

All terminal operators in the Trust Ferritory have been asked their opinions about improving the services.

Fhe United Nations Economic Com mission for Asia and the Far East las been asked to supply a shipping eonsultant to Congress.

Mr Polycarp Basilius, of Palau District, a member of Mr Haruo’s eommittee, was also critical of Trans pac services. He said his district egislature had adopted a resolution expressing dissatisfaction with the Franspac services.

“According to the information I now have, it would appear that to

protect the best interests of all the people of Micronesia, Transpac should be dissolved, and either a new company or a new organisation should be allowed to provide shipping ser vices to our people,” he said. “The present situation is more than just a crisis—it is a disaster.”

Integrated

Shipping

The pattern of shipping in the Paci fic Islands in the future will depend to a large extent on a number of in depth studies and conferences. For many years shipping services within and between Island groups have been haphazard. Services to the Islands from metropolitan countries have not given full satisfaction, although they have been better organised, and run to some sort of schedule.

Positive steps so far include the regional Pacific shipping conference in New Zealand in October, although the Enna G dispute created some pre conference bitterness. A report has been prepared by an Australian ship ping expert about the operational and financial structure of a regional ship ping line for the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Co-operation

(Spec).

This report may not be distributed till it has been cleared by the South

Pacific Forum, which will not meet till April.

One of its recommendations is that Karlander Pty Ltd be involved as a spearhead in a regional shipping line for the South Pacific.

There has also been a United Na tions Conference on Trade and De velopment survey. This covered a wider area than the report on the re gional shipping line. Discussions about the latter, initially, covered Fiji, Western Samoa, and Tonga.

Two Pacific Islands governments, Nauru and Tonga, already operate shipping lines covering a number of groups and territories.

The 13th South Pacific Conference at Guam discussed sea and air trans port during a debate about th e UNCTAD survey. Guam called for an extensive study to set up an “effi cient, economic and integrated sys tem covering the entire Pacific area”.

The proposal noted that member governments had done little about orderly transport; existing systems were inefficient, uneconomical and cumbersome.

Most speakers confined their re marks to shipping as it was generally agreed that air transport matters should be dealt with on a govern ment-to-government basis.

Mr W. Hussey, speaking on behalf of UNDP (United Nations Develop

lent programme), said a number of had been received to investi ate port and harbour facilities.

The speakers were concerned more /i t h broad outlines of transport ather than in getting down to de ail. No doubt that will be left to the xperts. The Pacific Islands have one riceless asset in shipping—an abun ance of natural raw material to turn ito efficient seamen.

The conference did not vote on the Juam proposal. Instead it referred ; to the 14th Conference, when the PEC report and the UNCTAD sur ey will be discussed.

Apanese Eyes

>N Madang

A Japanese company, Kambara Lisen Co, is believed to be interest d in setting up a ship-building corn lex at Mililat Harbour, Madang.

"h e company operates the cruise hip, Tropical Rainbow.

The PNG Government’s Madang irban study, of 1972, listing possible >ort locations, said Mililat was bigger han Nagada. However, it had nayi ;ation problems because larger ships yould have to approach through waters dotted with islands and reefs.

The shoreline was also uneven, vhich would make straight lengths >f wharf face expensive to construct.