It represents a continued partnership with Taiwan-based Evergreen and China's two state-owned lines — China Shipping and COSCO Container Lines — since relations between Taipei and Beijing started improving in 2008.
The new service, dubbed CPT, will be operated with three 2,500-TEU vessels (two from China Shipping and one from Evergreen) and a rotation of Shanghai, Ningbo, Manila North Harbor, Manila South Harbor, Laem Chabang, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
The first sailing on the service departs Shanghai March 26.
In other Evergreen news, American Shipper research affiliate ComPair Data is reporting that an OOCL intra-Asia service on which Evergreen takes slots is changing from a fortnightly service to a weekly one.
OOCL's will deploy two vessels (instead of one) on its KTX3 service, with a rotation of Osaka, Tokyo, Nagoya, Yokkaichi, Kobe, Keelung, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong and Shekou. The vessels are 2,700 TEUs.