Interview with
Ms. Belina Goh
Director
First of all Belina, what can you tell our readers about CCL? Is CCL an abbreviation, and if so, an abbreviation of what? When was the company established and who are the owners?
“CCL” is an abbreviation, and we are fondly called & well-remembered as CCL by our clients and vendors. We were founded in 2009 and “CCL” was initially an abbreviation for CHINA CONTAINER LINE, a highly regarded & ranked privately owned Chinese NVOCC with its head office in Shanghai. We were established as an equal joint venture between Malaysian interests with CHINA CONTAINER LINE and adopted the name.
CHINA CONTAINER LINE was merged by LF Logistics in 2013. The Malaysia operations opted not to be merged, and shareholders acquired all shares of our Chinese partner. It was decided after this acquisition to rename our company to be CONSORTIUM CONTAINER LINE. Our market sphere had come to be known us as CCL, and the change of name allowed us to keep this established & easy to remember abbreviation CCL.
Aside from me, our main and majority Malaysian shareholder is Mr. Dennis Dwee, and in April 2023 , Ms. Susanne Tan was appointed to be one of the directors as well.
CCL has established offices at 3 main locations in Malaysia, namely Penang , Port Klang (Head Office), Johor Bahru.
Do you have experience in handling project cargoes to/from Malaysia? Could you provide our readers with some examples of cargoes you have transported?
Project handling has been one of our services offering focus for many years. A number of my colleagues came from this segment of logistics services enriching us with their professional expertise & experience in handling large and small projects.
Through the years, we have handled relocation of whole factories from woodworking to television panels, palm oil refineries, heavy lift and oversized machines & parts, Oil & Gas sector structures, mining equipment, helicopters & aircrafts and all types of out-of-gauge cargoes.
Our job scope has involved everything from dismantling to rebuilding, door-to-door and port-to-port, freight arrangements, and end-to-end supervision, including transport to shipping.
Malaysia is a big country, and generally for those who don’t know it, covers a vast geographical area. Do you also handle transports to East Malaysia? How about deliveries to some of the main islands? Is this possible via CCL?
You are absolutely right that Malaysia is a big country. We are unique in that we have two regions. The Peninsular Malaysia which is generally also known as West Malaysia and East Malaysia, consisting of the states of Sabah & Sarawak. As an interesting geographical fact, East Malaysia has a larger land mass than Peninsular Malaysia. The state Sarawak is the larger of the two and is almost the size of the entire Peninsular Malaysia.
East Malaysia is on the Island of Kalimantan and borders Indonesia. Indonesia Kalimantan is primed for development with the planned new administrative capital, NUSANTARA, in the province of East Kalimantan. This will potentially lead to development of our East Malaysian states.
Naturally, the Peninsular Malaysia is the more developed between the 2 regions specially for transport infrastructure such as road, rail, ports, etc. Therefore, being large states, regional transport and logistics poses unique challenges. Among the projects we have handled are relocation of a complete log timber & plywood mill from TAWAU Sabah to Peninsular Malaysia and delivery of a complete bulk & bag loading system for Sabah Ammonia & Urea Refinery (SAMUR) at SIPITANG Sabah. Experiences gained from these & other projects in East Malaysia, and with established relationships with ports & terminals and vendors in this region, we are confident to support any projects into and out of there.
Is customs clearance a problem? Where is customs clearance taking place normally—at the first entrance port, at the airport, or at the final destination?
We hold our very own customs license. Hence, it is not an issue to perform the formalities as this allows us to have direct access to the authorities if any export or import shipments face any challenges. Clearance can be performed at the seaport /airport for both export & import arrangement.
Have you seen in Malaysia, too, that some of the shipping lines want to be freight forwarders? Do you think they will succeed in cutting out the forwarders?
Thanks for this interesting question. Shipping lines establishing freight forwarding units or acquiring established freight forwarders to move into this segment is not unique only to Malaysia. They have been doing so for some years on a global or regional scale, or in a specific country. I think the results can at best be deemed as mixed thus far for the lines that moved in this direction. Though container shipping and freight forwarding are integral components of the whole transport supply chain, within each are distinctly different competencies, philosophies, & business approaches that are required in order to succeed. While both segments of freight forwarders & carriers must work closely and cooperatively, within there are conflicting interests as well.
It is not as easy to dominate the transport supply chain despite the resources of carriers. We have yet to see any significant inroad made by carriers’ freight forwarding in our market space.
Do you currently belong to any overseas networks and if so what is the reason for it?
We currently belong to the following networks:
GLA NETWORK
SEAJET NETWORK
MARITIME STANDARD/CENTROLENE
PBLA
CROSS OCEAN
Our reason is that CCL believes business can be secured by joining networks although at times there is not an immediate result. Apart from this, other reasons are to do the groundwork to promote our company brand name and very importantly to allow our team to be exposed to dealing with companies abroad either virtually or in person. We are also able to keep ourselves abreast of what is happening to the industry in various countries and the customers’ ever changing requirements. We are very new to project networks and excited to be exposed to projects the rest of the members have handled.
How is the economic and political situation in Malaysia, is it stable and do you foresee many investments this year in your country?
Since Malaysia became an independent nation in 1957, we had only one coalition forming successive administrations over 12 general elections and ruling until 2018. This changed in 2018 when the opposition led by popular former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir, ousted the dominant ruling government. However this administration lasted only 20 months due to infighting & power struggles among the patchwork coalition parties.
A new coalition of remnants from the victors of 2018 usurped power to form a government & install a new prime minister in early 2020. And by mid-2021, another new Prime Minister was sworn in as a consequence of a coup within the coalition. Malaysia was neck-to-neck with Britain in the Prime Minister merry go round at that time. A general election was called last year and we now have another new administration & Prime Minister, Mr. Anwar Ibrahim.
Malaysians are hopeful to return to political stability under this new government. Economically, Malaysia has recovered well from the Covid years. We registered strong GDP growth of 5.6% in 2022, and economists are predicting growth of over 4.0% for 2023. We are a resource-rich nation and rank within the world’s top 25 trading nations and one of the top 5 in ASEAN. Slowing global trade & an uncertain economic outlook for the remainder of 2023 has impacted our GDP expansion forecast.
Malaysia was ranked as high as 12th globally by The World Bank for ease of doing business in 2020. This and other factors such as natural resources, geographical location, multi racial & cultural diversity, educated workforce and many others, attracts strong FDI interest into Malaysia. Our Prime Minister announced a projected investment of Malaysian Ringgit 170 Billion (4.65 to USD) after a recent successful state visit to China. Despite less than a stellar global economic outlook, Malaysia remains a very attractive nation for foreign investors.
What is the best way to reach you?
Please feel free to use the following contact information as required:
Belina Goh
CCL (PACIFIC) SDN BHD
22A-3, Jalan Tiara 2A/KU1, Bandar Baru Klang, 41150 Klang,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
T | +603 3344 5816
M | +6012 3725338
WeChat | belinagoh
E | belina.goh@ccl-group.com.my & project.my@ccl-group.com.my
Susanne Tan (Head of Projects Business Unit)
CCL (PACIFIC) SDN BHD
M | +6016 2320982
E | susanne.tan@ccl-group.com.my & project.my@ccl-group.com.my
