Chahaya Shipping & Trading Co., Pte Ltd was established in 1975 by Mr Steven SL Kwek, the managing director of the company and has its roots traced back to Indonesia. Chahaya started as a shipping agent, forwarder, and cargo and shipping broker in ports of Southeast Asia. The extensive networking and coverage in the regional shipping industry allowed the company to forge strong relationships and gain good support from both exporters out of Indonesia and traders within South East Asia. , Chahaya expanded to owning, and operating ships in 1992 to serve our customers’ ocean transportation needs in the Southeast Asia region. To compliment our core business, Chahaya also started offering a full set of shipping services which includes freight forwarding, shipping agency, brokerage and ship management services.
In the years following 1994, Chahaya took a step out of our trading area and ventured into the Pacific waters, operating tankers and container ro-ro vessels with our Australian partners. During this period, Chahaya was also appointed the agent of the National Line of Indonesian, PT PELNI to serve the national line’s commercial and technical operations in Singapore.
The advent of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 led Mr. Steven Kwek to diversify the company’s business into the Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Maldivian and Myanmar markets where Chahaya owns and
operate a fleet of general cargo vessels to carry timber, steel and agri-products for our customers in these ports.
Over our 34 years of incorporation, our shipping services and fleet has grown from coastal to international. Since 2006, we have successfully integrated vertically into the logistics supply chain. We started procuring, supplying and delivering construction and reclamation materials from distant sources to Singapore, leveraging on our shipping experience and regional contacts. The completion of 2 important supply and delivery government projects served as a springboard for the Company to secure more infrastructure and construction materials supply projects in Singapore.
This year 2010, the company will expand into property development as part of our long term strategy to diversify and strengthen & broaden our earnings base.
Going forward, the Company will continue to focus on improving our key business areas: increasing our fleet to serve our customers’ trading needs, and providing a more integrated logistical solution to our customers so as to effectively manage supply time and achieve competitive costs. We will continue to identify our customer’s product and project needs and bring them a seamless delivery solution by incorporating our shipping and trading strengths.