CHINA OCEAN SHIPPING COMPANY (COSCO) Container Lines Co., Ltd. (COSCON) is investing on a fleet expansion program to better serve its major markets and accommodate the continuously swelling volume in these areas.
COSCO Philippines Shipping Inc., the shipping line’s agent in the country, said that in August and September, the company deployed two mega-ships with a capacity of 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) to serve its Asia and the US West Coast trade.
The new vessels will add space to better serve the growing container traffic between Asia and America, COSCO Philippines senior marketing manager Arnie de Guzman told participants of the recently concluded 1st Shipping Lines-Freight Forwarders Convention.
He said the total fleet upgrading, which will serve the country’s biggest trading partner, will be realized this month with the commissioning of three additional 8,000-TEU vessels.
De Guzman said the same move is being done on the Asia-Europe trade, where a fleet of eight 5,500-TEU capacity vessels is already operational. “An additional string composed of another fleet of 5,000-TEU capacity vessels will be phased in to meet the growing demands between Asia and Europe,” he pointed out.
COSCON owns more than 100 container vessels, with an annual turnover of about four million TEUs, accounting for appro-ximately 4.2% of the total global volume.
From the Philippines, the line serves major trade lanes such as the US and Europe traffic, both inbound and outbound.
