New shipping routes highlight growing Asia-to-Mexico trade

TLP5 offers transit times of 15 and 20 days from Qingdao, China, to the ports of Ensenada and Manzanillo, Mexico, respectively. The service will utilize eight ships of 4,000 to 6,000 twenty-foot equivalent units. TLP5 launched with the 5,668-TEU vessel Xin Da Lian from Ningbo, China.

Port rotation for TLP5 includes Busan, South Korea; Dalian, China; Ningbo; Shanghai; Qingdao; Ensenada; Manzanillo; Ensenada; Yokohama, Japan; and returning to Busan.

Related: China boosts its Mexico investments as nearshoring opportunities grow

French carrier CMA CGM will launch M2X – Mexico Express Service on Saturday, connecting China, South Korea and Japan to Mexico’s ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas.

“Our new service, M2X – Mexico Express, is specifically designed to streamline shipments from the Far East to Mexico’s West Coast,” Marseille, France-based CMA CGM said in a news release. “This initiative aligns with market dynamics in the region.”

M2X – Mexico Express will run on a weekly fixed-day basis and be operated by eight ships of so far undisclosed capacity, with a port rotation of Tianjin, China; Qingdao; Busan; Ensenada; Manzanillo; Lazaro Cardenas; Yokohama; Busan; and Tianjin. M2X also directly connects reefer exports from Mexico to markets in China and Japan.

MSC is launching a loop shuttle service connecting Asia to Mexico starting May 15. The first voyage of MSC’s new loop shuttle service will be the MSC Apollo sailing from the Port of Qingdao.

“This new service will provide additional coverage and frequency between Asia and Mexico and is in addition to our existing network for the Andes, Aztec, Inca and Santana lines,” Geneva-based MSC said in a news release. 

MSC’s port rotation includes Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas and Qingdao.

Import container bookings from China to Mexico have skyrocketed over the past year, with Chinese direct investments in the country increasing 11% year over year in 2023 to $135 billion.  

While it is difficult to definitively say what is driving the demand for more ocean container service between the two countries, experts have theorized everything from nearshoring of manufacturing to Mexico to the ongoing geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China as reasons for the surge in shipments from China to Mexico.

Related: US-Mexico trade tops $200B in first quarter of 2024

FreightWaves’ SONAR Inbound Ocean Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) Volume Index shows that import container bookings from China to Mexico (IOTI.CHNMEX) are up 44% over the past year and 145% since March 1.