MUR and UASC launch joint services

Linking SA to S America and Gulf ALAN PEAT NEW MONTHLY shipping services have just been launched in a joint-venture between SA-based MUR and the United Arab Shipping Corporation (UASC). This, according to Robert de Laaf, who heads the South America line at MUR in Johannesburg, is a pooling of ships and resources. It provides a joint commitment to a monthly service on two shipping routes - Argentina, Brazil and SA to the Arabian Gulf and West India; and China, Korea and Japan to the Arabian Gulf and West India. The services are already in operation, and specialise in shipping steel products, pipes and breakbulk. UASC is a major shipowner/liner company with an asset base of US$1-billion, and owned equally by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain. The chairmen and CEOs are drawn from these governments in rotation. “For our day-to-day operations,” said De Laaf, “UASC offers the benefit of serving multiple ports in the Gulf and can also offer our group forwarding and trucking solutions.”