Hamburg Süd, CCNI, China Shipping Lines, Hanjin and Hyundai have reached an agreement to reduce the scale of their service offering during the forthcoming slack season between Asia and Mexico/South America West Coast with effect from mid-November 2011. To this end, the partners' three slings will be reduced to two.

Sling 1 of the new service will see the deployment of eleven 5,500 TEU vessels, of which Hamburg Süd is to provide ten and CCNI one. The port rotation in Sling 1 is as follows: Keelung – Hong Kong – Xiamen – Ningbo – Shanghai – Pusan – Lazaro Cardenas – Manzanillo – Buenaventura – Callao – Iquique – Puerto Angamos – Valparaiso – Keelung.

In Sling 2 ten container ships with a capacity between 3,100 and 4,500 TEU will be deployed. Of these, CCNI, China Shipping and Hanjin will each deploy three vessels and Hyundai one. The port rotation in Sling 2: Ningbo – Shanghai – Shekou – Hong Kong – Pusan – Manzanillo – Buenaventura – Guayaquil – Puerto Angamos – Valparaiso – San Vicente – Manzanillo – Pusan – Shanghai.

Through the rationalisation of the service, the partners hope to ensure adequate port coverage and competitive transit times for the markets in Asia, Mexico and on South America West Coast, despite the seasonal downturn in volumes.

Emirates Shipping Line once again boosted its port congestion surcharges on containers shipped through India’s Port of Chennai.

Effectively immediately, ESL’s new surcharges are $210 per 20-foot container on Chennai-Singapore-Port Kelang cargo and $75 per TEU on the Chennai-Colombo trade lane.

The Middle East carrier had previously on Sept. 28 revised its surcharges to $150 per TEU and $75 per TEU, respectively, from a flat $65 per-TEU imposed as of Sept. 1.

Chennai is India’s second-largest container port, having racked up a record throughput of 1.52 million TEUs in fiscal 2010-11 ended March 31.

The liner carrier MOL has withdrawn a service connecting Central America with the Caribbean and the north coast of South America and will join an Evergreen Line service on the same trade, according to research from American Shipper affiliate ComPair Data.

MOL has pulled its CX3, a fortnightly service operated with one 900-TEU vessel and a rotation of Manzanillo (Panama), Puerto Sucre, La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, and Manzanillo. It will now take slots on Evergreen’s CAS loop, which has a rotation of Manzanillo (Panama), Cristobal, Willemstad, La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, and Manzanillo. MOL will, however, only offer slots from Manzanillo to La Guaira and Puerto Cabello and will continue to use the CX3 designation for this service.

Evergreen has recently increased the size of vessel it operates on the CAS, with weekly capacity up from an average of 1,600 TEUs to 2,000 TEUs, ostensibly to provide the necessary slots for new partner MOL.

According to ComPair Data, MOL already purchases slots, along with fellow New World Alliance member APL, on Evergreen’s CAN service, which has a port rotation of Cristobal, Manzanillo (Panama), Puerto Limon, Caucedo, Rio Haina, San Juan, Puerto Limon, and Cristobal

CMA CGM Group has announced the upgrading of its ASEA service connecting Asia, Kenya and Tanzania, effective since October 12th, 2011.

The new ASEA weekly service deploys 6 ships of 2500 TEU (4 provided by CMA CGM Group and 2 provided by Emirates Shipping Line) and allows the Group to provide its customers with below pluses:

- Direct weekly service to Kenya and Tanzania gateways.

- Deployment of bigger vessels.

- One of the fastest transit times from Asia to Mombasa and Dar Es Salam.

- Port Kelang Hub: Connection with the CMA CGM’s global network of mainliners and feeders.

- An enhanced capacity of reefers in order to meet the growing demand of refrigerated transport on this trade.

The service rotation will be as followed: Port Kelang, Singapore, Port Victoria or Male, Mombasa, Tanga, Dar Es Salam, Colombo and back to Port Kelang.

The world's container shipping market may remain bleak for the rest of the year, after seeing shipping rates halved in the third quarter as western buyers tighten their purse strings amid growing fears of a global recession, an expert said.

"We can't see any major factors that can help stimulate US economic recovery and Europe's situation is even worse," said Sunny Ho, executive director of Hong Kong Shippers Council, which represents main exporters in Hong Kong, reported Reuters.

"The emerging markets have grown faster than the European and US markets, but they are unable to make up for the weak demand in traditional markets of Europe and the States," he told Reuters.

The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SFCI) for European routes tumbled 56 percent to an average of US$807.86 per TEU in the third quarter from $1,842.67 in the same period last year.

Average container shipping rates from Shanghai to US West Coast fell 40 percent year-on-year to $1,639.93 during the same period, according to BOCOM International, which tracks the indexes compiled by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange.

Indicating faltering western demand, many container shipping companies still sit on extra capacity this month, traditionally a peak season due to Christmas orders, and they are finding it increasingly hard to impose peak-season surcharge, said Geoffrey Cheng, an analyst at BOCOM International.

"Shipping rates are expected to fall further in the fourth quarter," he said.

The Westbound Transpacific Stabilization Agreement said its member carriers plan to implement targeted rate increases on export commodities Nov. 1.
Because increases will vary by commodity, WTSA lines will notify customers when rate increases are determined, and will post the changes on the WTSA Web site.

Initial cargo segments to be reviewed for rate increases include wastepaper; metal and plastic scrap; refrigerated beef, pork and poultry; hay; hides; agricultural products; chemicals; clay; forest products, dry miscellaneous freight-all-kinds cargo and refrigerated "not otherwise specified" cargo such as dairy products, baked goods or other prepared foods that are not covered under any commodity-specific review. Cotton rates will be reviewed under a separate seasonal schedule.

WTSA members are APL, Cosco, Evergreen, Hanjin, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai, "K" Line, NYK, OOCL and Yang Ming.

At 115,700 DWT and with a capacity of 9,038TEU, Grete Maersk was the first Maersk Line vessel to call the newly opened Cai Mep International Terminal (CMIT) on its route from Asia to North America. With this first direct “Transpacific 6”(TP6) vessel calling CMIT on August 16^th 2011, Maersk Line officially became a business partner of its sister company, APM Terminals, one of the three main investors in CMIT.

CMIT offers Maersk Line a 14 meter channel depth with 16.5m depth alongside, state-of-the-art shipside and shoreside handling facilities and over 36 hectares of container yard.

Peter Smidt-Nielsen, General Director, Maersk Line Vietnam said: “We are excited to start calling at CMIT with our Direct Trans Pacific service and look forward to further enhancing the service to our customers. We are very proud to be the only carrier with 100 percent On-Time schedule reliability between Vietnam and the US West Coast in quarter 2, and we look forward to continue delivering this important service to our customers.”

As business partners, Maersk Line and CMIT aim to provide their customers a better service to North American destinations, on-time vessel reliability and higher capacity to cover increased demand for imported cargo to Vietnam.

“We are delighted to welcome Grete Maersk to CMIT”, said Michael Them Rasmussen, General Director of CMIT. “With state-of-the-art equipment, highly trained and dedicated people and already high berth productivity, we are sure we can deliver on Maersk Line’s high expectations of us. We are looking forward to a successful partnership with Maersk Line over the coming years,” he added.

Modernizing ocean shipping towards quality, safety, reasonable cost, environmental pollution reduction, energy efficiency and better competitiveness is a major target of the plan for Vietnam ocean shipping development to 2020 and a related vision 2030, which were approved by the Prime Minister through Decision 1601/QD-TTg dated October 15, 2009. It is stated in this plan that the maritime economy is the second most important among five marine economic sectors from now to 2020 and the most important among these five marine economic sectors beyond 2020. The plan also says that maritime will contribute to strengthening national defense and security.

Based on analyses of factors that influence port successes, seaport development trends in Asia Pacific region and Vietnam, the plan for Vietnam seaport development to 2020 and a related vision to 2030, Vietnam maritime and seaport development orientations focus on improvement of ocean shipping service quality, satisfaction of domestic ocean shipping demands, increasing the market share of import and export goods transport to 27-30 percent, and transporting cargo according to the order of foreign partners. Vietnamese ships are expected to transport 110-126 million tonnes of cargo in 2015, 215-260 tonnes of cargo in 2020 and an amount of goods in 2030 which is 1.5-2 times that in 2020. They are expected to transport five million passengers in 2015, 9-10 million passengers in 2020 and a number of passengers in 2030 that is 1.5 times that in 2020.

Modernization of Vietnamese ships and attaching importance to developing vessels for special use (container ships, oil tankers, vessels for transporting bulk cargo, and more) and vessels of a big tonnage are also part of the development orientations. A goal is for Vietnam to have ships with a total tonnage of 6-6.5 million DWT (dead weight tonne) in 2010, 8.5-9.5 million DWT in 2015 and 11.5-13.5 million DWT in 2020. Another target is to reduce the average age of Vietnamese ships to 12 years in 2020.

Vietnam wants to see its shipbuilding industry reaching Southeast Asian advanced standards and being capable of building cargo ships of up to 300,000DWT in addition to modern passenger, oilfield, rescue and maritime guarantee ships in 2020.

Apart from upgrading and making a full use of existing seaports, it is necessary to construct international entrepot ports and other international ports in key economic zones, and deep water ports specifically designed for loading and unloading container cargo, coal, ores and modern equipment.

Trade between Vietnam and foreign countries has been growing rapidly. This is a favorable condition for the Vietnamese ocean shipping industry to develop. Modernizing ocean shipping towards high quality, safety, reasonable cost, environmental pollution reduction, energy efficiency and competitiveness improvement is very important for the Vietnamese ocean shipping industry to take the initiative in integrating into international maritime communities and expand markets in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world.

Hapag-Lloyd is implementing a series of general rate increases and peak-season surcharges on       Asia-Europe-Mediterranean trade lanes, as part of a new rate restoration program.

The German ocean carrier said rates on cargo shipped from India’s west coast ports of Jawaharlal Nehru (Nhava Sheva) and Mundra to North Europe will increase by $125 per 20-foot dry and reefer container, starting Aug. 1.

Hapag-Lloyd will levy a peak-season surcharge on shipments moving from East Asia (excluding Japan) to all  Mediterranean destinations. Effective Aug. 1, the surcharge on both dry and refrigerated cargo will be $200 per TEU.

The PSS will be followed by a GRI of the same amount that will take effect on East Asia-Mediterranean Services Sept. 1.