COSCO STARTS ASIA/EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SERVICE
China Ocean Shipping Co. has launched a direct, weekly Asia/eastern
Mediterranean container service, defying the current trend towards capacity reductions in the Asia/Europe trade.
The first eastbound call at Trieste of the new service is scheduled on Nov. 23. The westbound service kicked off in Asia at the end of October.
The service, which employs eight ships of about 2,000-TEU capacity, has a rotation of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Haifa, Piraeus, Trieste, Haifa, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Transit times and vessel details of the service are posted on www.compairdata.com, the global liner shipping database on the Internet.
Other shipping lines in the Asia/northern Europe and Asia/Mediterranean container trades are considering further cuts in ship capacity to reduce over-tonnaging.