Emirates commences Tampa service

Emirates commences Tampa service    Emirates Shipping Line has started calling Tampa as part of the Asia-Gulf Express service it offers in conjunction with vessel-sharing partner Zim Integrated Shipping Services.
   The vessel Emirates Spring, with a capacity of 3,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), made its maiden call at Tampa on October 13.
   'We see great opportunities in Tampa with the huge and rapidly expanding local Central Florida market,' said David Larr, president North American region for Emirates. 'We are eager to serve the Executive Shipper Council, as association of key central Florida importers and exporters who support carriers calling direct at the Port of Tampa, thus avoiding the additional trucking cost and inconvenience of routing their container to and from more distant ports.'
   Emirates is a new shipping line. It started operation in mid-2006, but it is rapidly developing a global service network. The company has headquarters in both Dubai and Hong Kong.
   The carrier's weekly AGX service has a port rotation of Shanghai, Ningbo, Pusan, Colon, Kingston, Tampa, Mobile, Houston, Kingston, and Shanghai.