Maersk starts new service in ports of China and Vietnam

The Maersk shipping company announced the start of a new service that connects the ports of Vietnam and China with the east coast of the United States through the Panama Canal, starting in May 2021.

The new service is offered after container trade on East-West routes decreased 2% in 2020.

At first, the growth of European imports from Asia was strongly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in the first half and decreased by 13%, first due to blockages in China and then due to blockages in Europe.

Then the recovery in the second half was not strong enough to offset the initial drop.

Also, North American container imports from Asia decreased 9.5 percent in the first half of the year.

But restocking and a significant increase in consumption of American goods fueled by a housing boom and fiscal stimulus pushed full-year import growth to around 4% in 2020.

Maersk

The TP23 chain will include eight Maersk and two ZIM vessels.

The rotation is anticipated to be Vung Tau, Vietnam/Yantian, South China/Panama Canal/Savannah/Charleston/Newark, while due to congestion in Savannah, the rotation initially and until further notice will exchange calls from the United States to go to Charleston / Savannah / Newark.

In Maersk’s view, the service will improve speed, reliability and coverage and will be integrated into the US East Coast inland logistics offerings.

With respect to existing services, transit times are improved from Yantian to Savannah by 3-4 days (28-29 days) and from Yantian to Charleston by 7-8 days (28-29 days).

Marine transport

The Vietnam call has been added to provide more capacity to the fast growing market which has seen 52 and 25% gains in the last two years.

Narin Phol, Managing Director of Maersk North America said: “Importers are looking for more gateways to the US East Coast in their Asia/North America supply chains, while exporters are looking for more equipment, especially in the Southeast region. from the United States. The TP23 service will allow us to address these needs while integrating our warehousing and distribution network.»

According to the company, the evolution of the TP23 service reflects Maersk’s 2020 approach to serving Transpacific’s cargo surges to the US East Coast, through additional capacity from service upgrades, additional chargers and loads on the Asia-Europe network.

Now the TP23 will become a structured, stable weekly service in 2021 with higher reliability.