Jakarta, 17th July 2000 - The world's largest container shipping alliance, the Grand Alliance, launched its first direct call service to Indonesia with the arrival today of the "OOCL Fortune" at Jakarta International Container Terminal (JICT), to start a new direct service between Indonesia's premier container terminal and North Europe.

The Grand Alliance consists of 5 global shipping lines partners, namely Hapag-Lloyd, Malaysia International Shipping Corporation (MISC), Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line (NYK), Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) and P&O-Nedlloyd. The partners cooperate throughout the world in sharing vessels, facilities and services on all major trade routes.

During a ceremony to welcome the vessel, attended by representatives from the Grand Alliance and P.T Pelabuhan II, JICT's President Director, Mr Simon Moore expressed his pleasure at the start of the new service.

"The arrival of the Grand Alliance at JICT is a groundbreaking moment for the Indonesian container shipping market - this a major direct service for Indonesia on one of the world's key trade routes."

The 241m long OOCL Fortune has a capacity for 2,850 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) and together with 7 more vessels from the Grand Alliance partners, will serve the ports of Southampton (United Kingdom), Rotterdam (Holland) , Hamburg (Germany) and La Spezia (Italy) as well as many other destinations by transhipping containers at these ports.

NYK as lead line of the Grand Alliance local committee in Jakarta commented that consortium members were excited about this direct call.

"This is the first time for the Grand Alliance to include Jakarta as a direct calling port, and it is a positive indication of the business prospects from and to Indonesia. We believe that Tanjung Priok and JICT are now ready to handle Grand Alliance vessels and we can promote Jakarta to be the hub to tranship cargoes from and to other Indonesian ports."

Mr Moore also outlined some of the many advantages this service will bring, as well as the future plans of JICT :-

"As well as direct shipment options to and from North Europe now available, from JICT, cargo owners at other Indonesian ports can benefit from this service, by using the feeder services linking them directly with JICT.

JICT will be working very closely with the Grand Alliance to ensure the success of this service. As the development and expansion of JICT gathers pace, with new computer systems, equipment and facilities already arrived or on the way, we remain committed to developing JICT into a world-class hub port for Indonesia."

Note to Editors:

Jakarta International Container Terminals (JICT) is Indonesia' largest container terminal and is jointly owned by Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) and P.T Pelabuhan Indonesia II. HPH is an independent port investor, developer and operator with operations in 18 ports in Asia, Europe and the Americas.