Maersk Inc North America is to launch a new transpacific service aimed at securing a share of Vietnam’s rapidly growing export trade.
Parent AP Moller-Maersk said its US unit has added Vietnam to provide more capacity to the rapidly growing market that has seen gains of 52% and 25% in the past two years.
The service, which will link ports in Vietnam and China with the US east coast via the Panama Canal, is due to start in May.
The TP23 string will include eight Maersk vessels and two from recently listed liner company Zim.
The rotation will involve calls at Vung Tau in Vietnam; Yantian in south China; the Panama Canal and then Charleston, Savannah and Newark in the US. Congestion at Savannah, however, has led the liner operator to call in Charleston before Savannah for the time being.
Maersk said the service will “improve speed, reliability and coverage and integrate into US east coast landside logistics offerings”.
Reduced transit times
Maersk said the new service will trim three to four days on the transit time from Yantian to Savannah to 28 to 29 days, while the Yantian to Charleston transit times will be shorter by over a week compared to existing services.
“Importers are looking for more US east coast gateways in their Asia/North America supply chains while exporters are looking for more equipment — especially in the south-east US region,” Maersk North America managing director Narin Phol said.
This is the latest in a series of services upgrades made by the liner giant on the transpacific to the US east coast since 2020 which has seen the deploying of 48% extra capacity on the trade between July and November last year versus the same period in 2019.
“The goal in 2021 is to build on this momentum and enable customers to grow their business with an integrated … model to attain supply-chain efficiency,” Phol added.
The US is Vietnam’s second-largest export market after China, according to official government data.
Analysts have said the South East Asian nation is set to one of the key beneficiaries of US President Joe Biden’s massive stimulus package.
Vietnam has also just unveiled plans to boost fruit and vegetable exports — a key reefer cargo — by 25% to $10bn by 2030.
Despite Covid-19, Vietnam’s economy has remain resilient, expanding by 2.9% in 2020, one of the highest growth rates in the world, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a recent report.
Growth is projected to be 6.5% in 2021, the IMF added.
