The new COSCO Shipping CEN-EXPRESS service on Oct 26 makes its debut at the Qingdao Qianwan United Container Terminal of Qingdao. [Photo/WeChat account: Shandong-Port]

The earsplitting sounding of the ship's horn of container vessel COSCO GENOA on Oct 26 signaled the debut of the COSCO Shipping CEN-EXPRESS service – on Oct 26 made its debut at Qingdao Qianwan United Container Terminal of Qingdao Port.

The new route has Qingdao Port as the first and only port of call in northern China.

By working with COSCO Shipping Lines, the partners aim to jointly create an eco-friendly Trans-Pacific logistics channel for direct customers, as part their efforts to ensure the stability of global industrial and supply chains.

In the past two years since it was founded, SPG has reportedly fully leveraged its geographical advantages of being at the intersection of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road – as well as being an estuary for regions along the Yellow River basin and a bridgehead for member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP trading bloc of nations.

In addition, the group has seized opportunities brought about by local government preferential policies, stepping up its efforts to pursue its transition and high-quality development – in a bid to offer better, more efficient and convenient logistics services to maritime partners and global customers.

COSCO Shipping Lines, for its part, has reportedly emerged as one of the most important strategic partners for SPG. During the first nine months of the year, SPG handled a total of 25.59 million TEUs – twenty-foot equivalent units – of containers, up 11.4 percent year-on-year. Of that, the container throughput from COSCO at SPG saw an increase of over 20 percent year-on-year, with the number of shipping routes and container volumes both ranking top among shipping companies that contract services with SPG. 

Plans are for five 4,250-TEU container vessels to be deployed on the newly launched CEN-EXPRESS service, which will be operated once a week. With the new service, another 1,500 TEUs of containers will be added to the total container throughput of Qingdao Port every week. It is expected that this will effectively ease the current shortage of vessel supplies.

With Qingdao as the only port of call in northern China, the COSCO GENOA loaded and unloaded a total of 2,650 TEUs of containers there, reportedly satisfying the needs of more than 20 enterprises, including the electronics and home appliance company Hisense Group.

It is expected that the new service will effectively avoid port congestion at the US western ports and shorten the delivery duration by more than two weeks, thus creating a green Trans-Pacific logistics channel for direct customers.