A new deep sea service has been established between the Port of Gothenburg and Japan. The first vessel is underway from Kobe and will call at the Port of Gothenburg container terminal, APM Terminals, on February 23.
“We welcome the new service to the Port of Gothenburg. Japan is an important market for Swedish import and export companies,” states Magnus Kårestedt, Chief Executive of the Port of Gothenburg.
Japan is Sweden’s second largest trading partner in the Far East, after China, and a major importer of Swedish forest products. Exports will comprise mainly sawn wood products, paper, steel and industrial components. Imports will comprise consumer goods, such as clothes, electronics and asian food.
The transit time from Sweden to Kobe will be 41 days. The vessels in the service will call at the Port of Gothenburg container terminal, APM Terminals, every Tuesday.
World’s largest vessel sharing agreement
The new service has emerged from the 2M alliance. The alliance is made up of the world’s two largest shipping lines – Swiss shipping line Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and Danish Maersk Line.
“We strongly believe in the Scandinavian market. Now, we can offer a direct deep sea service as well as a wide range of services to other destinations in the world from the Port of Gothenburg,” states Lars Rexius, Chief Executive of the Mediterranean Shipping Company Sweden. New destinations in the Far
East
The service include several ports that could previously not be reached by container vessels from Sweden, such as Kobe and Yokohama in Japan.
Maersk Line have up until now had two deep sea services from the Port of Gothenburg. Now that the shipping line is launching the new deep sea service to Japan the goods will be consolidated on that service.
At the same time the shipping line launches three additional feeder services between the Port of Gothenburg and other European ports.
“A deep sea service between Gothenburg and Japan has been requested by our customers for a long time and we are very pleased to finally have this in our offer. To meet the demand on the swedish market we will also add three additional feeder services from the Port of Gothenburg,” states Susanne Jacobsson, Chief Executive of Maersk Line Scandinavia.