July has seen Evergreen continue its expansion programme on the intra-Asia trade routes with the launching of no less than four services covering the region. While three of the services have concerned slot purchasing agreements on existing services, the other is an entirely new service covering Taiwan and the Philippines.

This new service, known simply as the Taiwan/Philippines (TPH) service started in the third week of July, and connects hub port Kaohsiung with Cebu, General Santos City and Davao and back to Kaohsiung, operating on a fixed-day weekly basis.

Deployment on the TPH service comprises two 1,330 TEU vessels offering a 14-day round trip transit to connect Evergreen’s Taiwan hub port with the important market centre to the south.

On the slot purchase side, Evergreen is expanding its intra-Asia service through a slot exchange agreement with Sinokor on the Pusan/China/Indonesia service known as the PCI service. The PCI is operated by Sinokor, Heung-A and SITC and covers Pusan, Kwangyang, Shanghai, Jakarta, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Shanghai and Pusan. Deployment comprises 4 x 2,700 TEU vessels. The first Evergreen sailing from Pusan was made in mid-July by the 2,702 TEU Northern Vigour.

On the Southeast Asia trades, Evergreen has also put together two separate slot purchase agreements to cover the growing local market requirements. The line has cemented a slot purchase deal with X-Press Feeders to cover calls at Singapore and Laem Chabang on a service to be marketed by Evergreen as the TSX1. The TSX1 runs on a weekly basis to cover the two ports, and deploys the 4,252 TEU feeder vessel JPO Virgorunning on a fixed-day sailing schedule.

Separately, and through a slot purchase agreement with Regional Container Line (RCL) and Yangming, Evergreen has also put together another slot purchase agreement, this time to cover Singapore and Bangkok. This service covers Singapore, Bangkok, Singapore, Belawan, Port Kelang, and Singapore, but Evergreen will only have slots on the Singapore/Bangkok connection.

By Paul Richardson

Sea Freight Correspondent | London