SINGAPORE: Orient Express Lines Singapore (OEL), part of Transworld Group Singapore, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a grand party at the Mandarin Oriental recently.

Formed with the mission to be the customer’s “obvious choice”, the shipping company provides a network of reliable container   feeder services through its fleet of owned and chartered container vessels, linking transshipment ports in Singapore and Malaysia with the Indian sub-continent.

OEL   operates   a   network   of   26  vessels along with partners  for its various services. The company owns 11 of them. The OEL Fortune and OEL Progress were acquired in July. These ships have helped the company further strengthen its presence in India’s east coast and provide reliable and continuing service to its key customers. The company’s operations, manned by its qualified and competent staff, have expanded considerably in the region over the years.

It has a staff strength of 30 in its Singapore headquarters.

It also has offices at various Indian ports, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. This wide network has enabled it to offer space-sharing arrangements with strategic partners and deliver frequent and timely connections for customers. Today, the network offers services connecting India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam utilising Singapore as the hub.

It is one of the largest container feeder operators in the Bay of Bengal.

OEL was formed in 1999 when Kerala born Mr. Mahesh Sivaswamy relocated from Mumbai to Singapore with a vision to establish Transworld Group Singapore as a prominent shipping house of high repute in Asia.

“Orient Express Lines was set up to commence a service between Singapore and Bangladesh for a major customer,” he said. “From a humble beginning in a small office at Anson Centre with just four staff, we continued to grow and introduced more services into the Indian sub-continent and South-East Asia transshipping via Singapore, Port Klang and Colombo.”

Mr Sivaswamy, who later became a Singapore citizen, expanded the business by owning ships.

In 2002, OEL embarked on purchasing its own container vessels flying the Singapore flag under Liberty Navigation Singapore.

In 2005, during the shipping boom, it found a window at the Singapore Technologies’ marine shipyard to build new vessels. “This was the time when the order books of shipyards worldwide were full for the next 10 years. We took a bold and timely decision to order two new container vessels,” he said. “Though OEL started off with chartered tonnage, today we own 11 container feeder vessels and operate a total of 26 vessels.”

Mr Sivaswamy pointed out that this gave the company the confidence to grow steadily to a position of prominence in its area of operations.

“We also have to thank the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) and all Singapore authorities for facilitating our growth,” he said.

To complement OEL’s services, Mr Sivaswamy started container freight station Transworld Terminals in 2005, cargo services arm BLPL Singapore in 2007 and a logistics division under BLPL – Transworld Global Logistics Solutions –

in 2008. In the following years, Providence Ship Management was formed to technically manage its owned tonnage and a freight forwarding, projects and specials division – TLPL Integrated.

He brought the various business units together by establishing the holding company, Transworld Group Singapore, in 2012.

OEL has earned an impressive reputation for excellence.

It was selected for five years in a row from 2005 as an Enterprise 50 company (the top 50 private companies in Singapore) for contributions to the economic development of Singapore. The award is given by Business Times and supported by Government institutions including International Enterprise Singapore, Economic Development Board, Infocomm Development Authority Singapore and SPRING Singapore.

OEL was also awarded the Approved International Shipping Enterprise Status by Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, PSA and MPA.

The company   also   received   the “SME 100” award in June 2016 which is given to the top 100 SMEs in Singapore.

“Our progress thus far has been on the strength of the unwavering support of our customers, trade partners and service providers,” said Mr Sivaswamy, the Chairman and CEO of Transworld Group Singapore. “Moving forward, we will continue to remain transparent and open in all our dealings. “We strongly believe in the regular training and development of our staff to increase output quality, and have created state-of-the-art IT systems and upgrading them regularly for   better productivity.

“Building upon the strong foundation of our vision, mission and values on which our organisation has grown, we shall endeavour to maintain a high standard of quality efficiency and customer service,” he added.