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Hanjin and Sinotrans opt for Chiwan's 'more competitive price levels' for South China freight

Two key players in the China-Europe trades plan to drop direct calls at Hong Kong on the China-Europe Express (CEX) service, replacing them with calls at Shenzhen's Chiwan port.

Hanjin Shipping and Sinotrans soon will make their first calls at Chiwan on the westbound leg of the service, and drop Hong Kong as an exporting centre for cargo from southern China to Europe.

Hong Kong has been a port of call on the CEX loop since the lines introduced the joint schedule in the early 1990s. It was one of the first direct services linking ports along the China coast with north Europe and Britain.

In December, Hanjin and Sinotrans also will drop Hong Kong as an eastbound call on the CEX, centring all stops for the southern China market on the service through Chiwan.

The move was being made because Chiwan offered more competitive price levels, a Hanjin source said.

The first westbound calls at Chiwan were planned for later next month and the first eastbound call at Chiwan on this service was expected in late December, the source said.

Chiwan now will replace Hong Kong as the first southern China port of call for the Seoul-based shipping giant's five new chartered ships of 4,350 teu (20 ft equivalent units), which are being built in South Korea. All five are expected to be used on the CEX by early next spring. The newbuildings will replace 2,700-teu vessels, providing faster service and transit time.

The nine-ship service, which includes three chartered 4,000-teu ships operated by Sinotrans, will switch to an eight-ship service next spring.

'We are conscious of the problems surrounding the China-Europe trade at the moment, with westbound volumes at an unusually low level,' a Hanjin executive said. 'The slack season is looming.

'Our charters with the new ships have already been committed, and so we are coming to the marketplace with an improved service, offering better transit times and a more balanced space allocation with Sinotrans. We are also reducing operating costs by dropping to eight ships.'

Hanjin will continue to serve the Hong Kong-Europe trade with two pendulum services which also link to the US West Coast. Sinotrans is being offered about 200 slots a week on these services.

The new CEX schedule will call at Chiwan, Xingang, Qingdao, Shanghai, Singapore, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Felixstowe, Singapore and Chiwan.

Meanwhile, Japanese line Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K-Line) is to start making direct calls in central China on its Japan-Europe Service. Calls at Ningbo are to be introduced next month, in addition to Yantian, to boost space utilisation westbound on newly delivered 5,500-teu ships.

The post-Panamax ships replace vessels of about 3,500 teu in capacity, which made calls at Kobe, Nagoya and Tokyo, to serve north Europe.

K-Line sources said the decision to include Ningbo was in reaction to the growing volumes from central China for Europe.

The company has a vessel-sharing agreement with China Ocean Shipping on the China-Europe trade, and already serves the central China market with limited space allocation through Shanghai.

E-mail Paul Richardson on [email protected]

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