[030311.EN.SEA] CMA CGM Increases Services From Asia To US West Coast

FRENCH shipping giant CMA CGM has announced it is increasing services between Asia and California to meet growing transpacific demand expected this year and in years to come, said a company statement.

As of May 2011, the consolidation of its partnerships will enable CMA CGM to reinforce transpacific coverage.

"This upgrade is a significant improvement and enables us to meet the considerable growth in import/export flows between Asia and North America," said CMA CGM vice president Jean-Philippe Thenoz of the North America Lines.

"CMA CGM offers an exceptional frequency of calls to major Chinese ports, ultra-competitive transit times, and good coverage of Korean and Japanese trades heading for California," he said.

Specifically, the Hangzhou Shuttle, direct service between Ningbo, Shanghai and Los Angeles is a new service starting in May that will complete existing CMA CGM services on this trade (the Bohai Rim, serving central and north China, and the Yang tse, covering Taiwan, Hong Kong, central and south China) and will double the frequency of calls to five major Chinese ports Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ningbo, Xiamen and Shenzhen-Yantian.

In total, these three weekly services will operate twelve 8,100-TEU and five 6,000-TEU ships.

The weekly Sunrise service, a combined service between South Korea, Japan and the US west coast will operate five 4,400-TEU vessels and to rotate through Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Yantian, Xiamen, Ningbo, Long Beach and Oakland.

The Bohai Rim service will rotate through Dalian, Tianjin, Xinqang, Qingdao, Shanghai, Long Beach and Oakland.

Source : HKSG, 01.03.11.