CHINA SHIPPING TAKES SPACE ON ZIM’S ASIA/MED SHIPS

CHINA SHIPPING TAKES SPACE ON ZIM’S ASIA/MED SHIPS    China Shipping Container Lines has started taking space on the Asia/Mediterranean leg of Zim Israel Navigation’s Asia Med Pacific tri-continent service.
   The Chinese carrier, which cut the capacity of its
Asia/Mediterranean/northern Europe services last month, will now provide the Zim service under slot charter.
   Between Asia and the Mediterranean, the weekly service calls at Busan, Shanghai, Shekou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, Haifa, Alexandria, Koper, Venice, Trieste,    Piraeus, Haifa, Colombo, Singapore, Shekou, Hong Kong, Yantian, Shanghai and Busan.
   China Shipping was already taking space on the transpacific leg of the Asia Med Pacific, which calls at Vancouver, British Columbia, and at Seattle, Wash.
   The slot-charter on Zim’s service forms part of a space swap agreement between the Israeli line and China Shipping in the
Asia/Mediterranean/northern Europe trade, a spokesman for Zim said. Under the deal, space on Zim’s Asia/Mediterranean service is exchanged for slots on China Shipping’s Asia/northern Europe loop.
   According to ComPairData, the global liner shipping database, China Shipping now provides five services a week between Asia and Europe, of which three call at ports in northern Europe and two serve the Mediterranean. Zim now has three weekly Asia/Europe services — one to northern Europe and two to the Mediterranean.