Rocan Leung, Arena

(852)2951 6612; Fax: (852)2318 1494; Email: rocan.leung@arena.com.hk

5th April 2000

[Hong Kong, 5th April 2000] (http://www.arena.com) Arena, one of the e-commerce service providers operating under the umbrella of Portsnportals.com, today announced that it has signed a deal with Baltrans Holding Limited that will enable over 2,300 shippers to get on the pulse of e-commerce by using the Arena technology.

Portsnportals.com is the e-commerce group of Hutchison Port Holdings and delivers a range of e-commerce services covering all aspects of the transportation business. Through Arena, Portsnportals.com delivers an internet based paper-free document and community system for the global business to business procurement of marine goods and supply management.

Under the new agreement, Baltrans will be connected to Arena's easy to use web-based front-end, allowing its shippers to create electronic shipping orders and exchange electronic shipping documents with Baltrans in real time. This can be done cost effectively without incurring further investment in shipper's internal IT infrastructure. Users require no more than just an internet-enabled PC.

The service will be launched immediately to all Baltrans affiliated shippers. Users will enjoy the benefit of a significant reduction in shipping handling costs. Labour expenses and time costs will all be dramatically reduced by minimising the duplicating effort of data entry through fax-in orders and eliminating manual data input errors which will in turn speed up the logistic process.

The Chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding Agents Ltd and the Chairman and Chief Executive of Baltrans Holding Ltd., Mr. Anthony Lau, sees the Baltrans - Arena partnership as a significant move for its shippers to ride on the wave of e-commerce.

Mr. Lau said, "The e-commerce technology not only can reduce our operating costs, it raises our productivity enormously, ensuring Hong Kong can stay competitive in the long run."

Dave Lee, General Manager of Arena, said, "The Baltrans deal has once again confirmed the capability of Portsnportals.com, through Arena, to provide a low cost and effective e-commerce solution to our shipping community. High initial IT investment is one of the major factors that stops Hong Kong shippers from getting into e-commerce as they are mostly small-to medium sized companies. We believe that Arena can become the prime solution of electronic document exchange for the whole shipping sector."

On the successful implementation of Arena's e-commerce solution in Hong Kong, Baltrans will roll out the services to its China, North America, South East Asia and Pacific operations.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Arena was established in 1994 and is the vehicle through which portsportals.com, the e-commerce group of Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), delivers a paperless, borderless Internet-enabled electronic infrastructure for the global business-to-business procurement of marine goods and supply chain management. As the global leader in the market for the supplies procurement for sea vessels, Arena currently has over 4,000 members in 33 countries and is helping shipping lines and ship management companies to radically improve their trade and delivery process to vessels. More information about Arena can be found at http://www.arena.com

Baltrans Holding Limited is one of the largest Hong Kong-based freight forwarding and logistics companies, providing full services to customers all over the world. Baltrans was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1992 and has a group sales turnover of HK$ 1.39 Billion for FY1999. Baltrans has its own overseas offices, joint ventures and agency network in high growth markets such as Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, United States with coverage of over 30 countries in 5 continents. More information about Baltrans Holding Limited can be found at http://www.baltrans.com

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