Matson Shipping company is entering the American Samoa market with the first direct sailing of a Matson ship from Honolulu to American Samoa via Apia arriving in two months.
The shipping company, which has been in business for 134 years, made an introduction in style at a dinner at the Tradewinds Pavilion last night, attended by mainly the business community and ASG officials who deal with the shipping industry.
All Blacks great Laauli Michael Jones who is one of Matson’s key employees in Auckland, New Zealand, was one of the many company reps who came from Hawaii, Samoa and New Zealand for the launch.
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He wasn’t the only son of Samoa who has been working for the last few years to start up this shipping link.
Vic Angoco, Matson’s Senior vice President Pacific is the son of Norma Angoco, a daughter of the Iuli and Godinet families of Leone.
Norma and her husband Ben, who were at the launch last night, hosted a dinner at their home for American Samoa’s group to FestPac Guam last month.
Angoco says Matson has been connecting Hawaii and all of the main shipping cities of the US mainland, as well as to the North Pacific… Micronesia and Asia, and three years ago they started service to Auckland new Zealand.
He told last night’s gathering the service to Pago Pago completes Matson’s links between east and west, north and south.
Every 28 days there’ll be a Matson ship leaving Honolulu, going to Apia, then to Pago Pago, on to Tonga, Fiji and back to Honolulu.
Angoco says the network and experience of Matson will ensure shippers can bring down anywhere from the US and Hawaii to the Samoas.
On the backhaul, there’ll be new trade opportunities for both Samoas.
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The first Matson boat will be arriving here in mid August.
At last night’s function Matson presented a $2500 check to Red Cross, which is one of the company’s community causes in other markets that it serves. 
The check was happily received by the Red Cross Board Chairman, Vaitoa Hans Langkilde.
Vaitoa said this was a reunion of sorts with a shipping company that his late father, Joseph, worked for.
