APL will join the INTTRA e-commerce portal, giving the platform important new reach in the ocean shipping world, the companies announced Tuesday.

“Joining INTTRA is essential to meet market demand for proven e-commerce solutions that streamline processes, optimize freight flows and manage costs,” APL President Eng Aik Meng said in the announcement.

The Singapore-based container shipping unit of Neptune orient Lines said the INTTRA membership “complements APL’s existing relationship with GT Nexus.” APL was a founding member of that competing portal, whose 40,000 registered users include major shippers.

A full-scale electronic interface between INTTRA and APL is scheduled for completion by the end of 2010.

APL joined the INTTRA network a few months after the e-commerce portal moved its booking services into East Asia with the opening of a new development center in China, a new office in Japan and expanded expand its global development and service center in Singapore.

The expansion came after ABS Capital Partners invested $30 million in fresh capital into the company, taking a majority share in a booking platform started by ocean carriers and setting INTTRA on an expansive new business plan.

The new capital investment enabled INTTRA to expand into East Asia and to expand its global development and service center in Singapore.

INTTRA said volume growth in container orders initiated on its platform across the East Asian region has averaged more than 80 percent in the past two years.

The INTTRA network consists of electronic links with more than 30 leading ocean carriers and more than 50,000 active network connections with shippers to streamline and standardize processes such as bookings, bills of lading and invoicing. Each week 315,000 container orders are initiated over the INTTRA platform, representing in excess of 10 percent of global liner shipping trade.

The platform still lacks several major members in Asia, including Evergreen Line and OOCL.

Source: JOC