Kudos Port, Sasa, Davao City
April 30, 2017
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and President Joko Widodo of Indonesia led the launching of the Davao-General Santos-Bitung Roll-On/Roll-Off (RORO) Shipping Service at the Kudos Port in Sasa, Davao City.
The project is under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Blueprint 2025, the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, and the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Vision 2025.
The route will provide a faster and cheaper channel of trading goods among BIMP-EAGA’s key cities. It also aims to strengthen economic activities in BIMP-EAGA especially between Mindanao in the Philippines and the northern provinces in Indonesia.
In President Widodo’s message, he expressed his gratitude to President Duterte and shared his hopes regarding the project. “…I also feel moved and thankful to visit Davao, this wonderful city, this great region… I would now like to express my deepest gratitude to President Duterte for your extraordinary commitment in realizing this shipping route and to all the people both in Indonesia and the Philippines that have worked so hard to make this shipping route possible,” he said.
“May this ocean transport service shipping route stand as a symbol of the friendship and partnership between our peoples,” the Indonesian leader added.
On the other hand, President Duterte said, “The Davao-Gensan-Bitung route will not only connect us and the rest of ASEAN, it will also physically integrate our respective archipelagos with the rest of the region. We are hopeful that by opening new ports and exploring possible routes, we will stimulate trade, tourism, and other areas of development among ASEAN member states… This will not just strengthen intra-regional maritime connectivity among ASEAN members, it is also to introduce new opportunities for trade expansion with larger on emerging economies outside our region.”
“I once again thank President Widodo, the Government of Indonesia and our private partners for helping us make this first ASEAN Roll-On/Roll-Off possible. Let this event serves as a reminder that our relationship is not only trade partners but between friends tied together by bond that transcends borders,” President Duterte stressed.
A Roll-On/Roll-Off (RORO) ferry, the M/V Super Shuttle Roll-On/Roll-Off (RORO) 12 with a vessel capacity of 500 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), will provide a weekly shipping service to the route.
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