Archipelago Philippine Ferries Corp., operator of FastCat roll-on/roll-off ferries, said Thursday it plans to expand operations to Malaysia and Indonesia by late next year.
“Initially, these are the two countries that are very close to the Philippines. Our goal is to connect these two gateways,” AFPC chairman Christopher Pastrana said in a news briefing at Sofitel Philippine Plaza Hotel in Manila.
Pastrana said the company aimed to start the Palawan to Kudat in Sabah, Malaysia route by late 2017.
“I think if we open these two gateways, there’s no stopping us to opening up other gateways. They are talking about Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam,” he said.
Pastrana said the company would deploy two vessels for its Malaysian and Indonesian operations. At present, AFPC has 10 Catamaran vessels.
“But our goal is to have 30 ships, initially all over the Philippines. So that we will be able to connect about 11 million passengers, which is less than 15 percent of the total riding public using sea lanes as main mode of transportation and move about 12 million to 15 million tons of cargoes which is still not even 15 percent of the 110 million tons of cargoes moving in and out of the entire Philippines,” Pastrana said.
Pastrana said the company would acquire 20 Catamaran vessels for $8.3 million to $11 million each.
“The total is about $120 million to $160 million. That’s a substantial amount of investment by 2020,” he said.
FastCat current routes include Batangas to Clapan, Mindoro; Bulalacao, Mindoro-Caticlan, Aklan; Matnog, Sorsogon-San Isidro, Northern Samar; Bacolod-Iloilo, Liloan, Leyte-Lipata, Surigao; San Carlos, Negros Occidental-Toledo, Cebu and Dumaguete, Negros Oriental-Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte.
AFPC will host the 41st Annual Interferry Conference at Sofitel Philippine Plaza on Oct. 15 to 19.
Pastrana said this year’s conference would discuss safety practices and technological innovations within the ferry industry and encourage more stakeholders to join the association especially those from the Asia Pacific region.
“Inteferry is the voice of the worldwide ferry industry and we would like to see an increased number of Asia Pacific members,” Darrel Bryan, chief executive of Interferry, said.
“The global ferry industry carries more than two billion passengers per year and close to half of these are in Southeast Asia. In contrast, only 22 percent of our members are from Asia, the Pacific and Africa, so we are determined to recruit in these regions, and to extend our safety initiative in the developing world where a vast majority of serious ferry incidents take place,” Bryan said.