Shanghai-based China Shipping Container Lines Co Ltd (CSCL) launched its maiden voyage from Tianjin to the Middle East on Thursday (July 9) by co-operating with French CMA CGM, a world leading container shipping group.

The new shipping line will have six container ships in use, each able to carry 8500 twenty equivalent units (TEU), said Wang Xiuping, general manager of CSCL Enterprise Strategic Planning Division.

Wang said the new line will have more harbors than before by adding Khor Fakkan and Bandar Abbas harbours, but its voyage time will be cut down.

Before that, CSCL signed an agreement with Taiwan's Evergreen Group in May 2009 to co-operate on container shipping lines. Starting from June 16, both have put 26 ships, each able to carry 9600 TEU or 8500 TEU, into the lines from the Far East to North Europe, Southwest America, Mexico and East America.

"Ships on these lines with a combined ability of carrying 190,000 TEU are profitable," said Wang. He said the co-operation with overseas shipping groups is an important measure taken by CSCL to challenge the global recession which has led the world's container shipping market to a fiercer competition.

"We don't know when the recession will be over. The only way we can do now is to reinforce the co-operation with our counterparts," Wang said.

CSCL, set up in 1997, has been ranked among the world's top 10 shipping companies. By June of 2009, it had boasted the shipping capacity of 498,000 TEU with more than 90 lines, forming a global shipping network.

In face of the fierce market competition, CSCL plans to dismantle a number of old ships aged over 20, each carrying only 500 to 600 TEU, in order to reduce costs and sharpen its competitive edge, he said.