CKYH-the Green Alliance announced it has forged an agreement with Taiwan’s Evergreen Line to increase sailing frequency, improve transit time and widen port coverage on the Asia-Europe and Asia-Mediterranean trade lanes from the second quarter of 2012.
CKYH clarified that Evergreen was not joining the alliance but would cooperate with the group “to provide more intensive sailings to the level of eight service loops from Asian ports to Northern European base ports, and four service loops from Asian ports to Mediterranean ports every week.”
CKYH consists of four box lines: China COSCO, Japan’s “K” Line, Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine and South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping.
Most of the fleet to serve the 12 loops will range in size from 8,000 20-foot equivalent units to 13,000 TEUs.
Industry watchers said the cooperation would boost CKYH and Evergreen Line’s competitiveness on the Asia-Europe and Asia-Mediterranean routes against the new alliances formed by Maersk Line and CMA CGM, and by the six container shipping companies that have created the G6 Alliance.
They added that such partnerships may enable lines to hike container shipping rates that have drastically fallen due to weak demand and overcapacity, and cut costs through sharing resources, as they noted the increasing difficulty for any line to survive on the Asia-Europe trade market without an alliance.
Photo from Cosco
