On February 1, “Benjamin Franklin”, the biggest steamship on the China-USA container shipping lines, made its maiden trip to Nansha Port, Guangzhou. The 200,000-tone steamship with container capacity of 18,000 TEUs belongs to CMA CGM, which is a French company. It travels along the first new foreign trade shipping line opened by Guangzhou Port Group this year.

 

In the past, the container capacity of the vessels of CMA CGM to the Americas was basically 14,000 TEUs. However, from this year, CMA CGM has begun to use the vessels with container capacity of 18,000 TEUs, indicating the confidence of the company with the economic development of China. By using vessels with larger container capacity, it tries to fully participate in the economic development of China and promote the construction of international shipping hub and shipping center of Guangzhou. This time, the success of the maiden trip along the line to the Americas indicated the increase of demands of customers in the hinterland of Guangzhou Port for shipping lines to the Americas, which will promote a great increase of the foreign trade container throughput at Nansha Port area. Currently, the world’s biggest container vessels have successively berthed alongside Nansha Port area for operations, meaning that Nansha Port area is becoming more and more influential in the global shipping market.

 

In accordance with three-year action plan for the construction of the international shipping center, Guangzhou Port Group set up the goals in 2016: achieving a total cargo throughput of 408 million tones and a total container throughput of 16.1 million TEUs; developing eight new foreign trade shipping lines and three new shuttle bus branch lines; establishing three inland offices or inland ports.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, February 4, 2016