COSCO launches service to Mexico

A shipping vessel loaded with nearly 800 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo departed from a container terminal of the Dalian Port in Jinpu New Area of Dalian, Liaoning province, on Friday, marking the official launch of China COSCO Shipping's "Dalian Port to Mexico" container express service.

The new route will effectively meet the demand for maritime transport capacity and container space from enterprises in Northeast China eyeing markets in Latin America, said Li Xiaoguang, general manager of Dalian Container Terminal Co.

Goods transported on the outbound route will include processed grains, chemicals, minerals, automotive parts, machinery and frozen goods, he said.

Previously, goods exported from the northeastern hinterland to Latin America had to be transshipped through the Busan port in South Korea, he said.

"The new route saves more than 10 days compared to the traditional transshipment model, significantly reducing time and logistics costs for enterprises, and establishing a stable and convenient new logistics channel between the Northeastern hinterland and Latin America," Li said.

Against a backdrop of increasingly close economic and trade ties between Northeast China and Mexico and continuous growth in trade volume, Liaoning Port Group, in collaboration with China COSCO Shipping, has actively promoted the opening of this container express route. Since May, it has been operating in trial mode.

COSCO Shipping's Mexico Express Service connects key Mexican Pacific ports like Ensenada, Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas with major Far East ports such as Busan, Dalian, Ningbo, Shanghai and Qingdao.

"This route operates weekly and plans to deploy eight vessels with a capacity of 6,000 to 8,000 TEU slots per voyage," said Yang Jimin, assistant general manager of the customer sales department at Dalian China COSCO Shipping Container Transport Co.

On its return journey to Dalian, vessels will carry various cold chain goods, including seafood, fruits and meats, from Latin America.

At the Dalian area of the China (Liaoning) Pilot Free Trade Zone, Dalian Port Yidu Cold Chain Co is constructing a "Global Warehouse" project.

According to project manager Fan Guangdong, it will cover an area of 130,000 square meters with a total storage capacity of 400,000 metric tons for cold chain goods. It will be equipped with 72 frozen product processing rooms.

Leveraging the comprehensive advantages of Dalian Port and the Dalian Free Trade Zone, it aims to become the lowest-cost and largest near-port cold chain logistics processing and production base and trading platform globally, as well as the largest international transit center for aquatic products in China, said Fan.

The newly opened container express route is the fourth foreign trade container route opened by Liaoning Port Group this year.

In recent years, the port group has focused on optimizing the route network layout, with nearly a hundred foreign trade container routes covering major trade areas globally such as Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean and the Americas.

zhangxiaomin@chinadaily.com.cn