China Shipping: new service from the Far East to Israel

The new service will not serve Israeli directly but through the port of Damietta supported by two dedicated feeder ships - Xiang Qian and Xiang Kun
 
China Shipping (CSCL ) announced last week the innauguration of a new service from the Far East to Mediterranean ports. The new service, AMX1, will deploy seven containerships with an average capacity of TEU 4,000 each.
 
The new service will not serve Israeli directly but through the port of Damietta supported by two dedicated feeder ships - Xiang Qian and Xiang Kun.
 
In a press release issued by CSCL's local agent, the company stressed that Israel is its second most imortant market in the Mediterranean and that formal announcement had been given about the closure of the weekly round the world AMAX service, connecting Far Eastern port via Haifa to Terranian Sea ports and North American ports. The new AMX1 service calls at many ports in the Far East offering an excellent subsitute to the AMAX service.
 
The direct service which the company maintained until now provided the Israeli businesses community with much needed additional container shipping capacity to and from international markets.
 
However, the decision made by China Shipping Container Lines to end its direct calls has not been well accepted by the Israeli shipping public who noted that it may affect other global service providers. It should be noted that over the last year, since the second Lebanon war and the congestion at the ports, the company claims to have lost money on its Israeli service.
 
China Shipping Container(CSCL), a division of China Shipping Group(China Shipping), is a containerized marine shipping company, based in Shanghai, China. The company has grown rapidly, and is now the sixth largest container shipping company in the world, operating a modern fleet that comprises 134 vessels, and a total operating capacity of 400,000 twenty-foot equivalent units. In the next few years the company will receive additional 29 new containerships which will increase the total operating capacity by 126,000 TEU.