Chennai port gets direct link to South-East Asia

In an another step towards Chennai port becoming a regional trans-shipment hub, a direct weekly container shipping service to ports in Korea, China, Singapore and Malaysia started today.

Chennai port now has direct services to 58 global ports and has emerged as a trans-shipment hub for Visakhapatnam, Kolkata and Haldia ports in India as well as Chittagong port in Bangladesh.

The new Asia-Chennai service from the Chennai Container Terminal (CCT), run by DP World, will be operated by Tokyo Senpaku Kaisha Line, Hyundai Merchant Marine and Bengal Tiger Line. Four vessels with a capacity of 1,200 TEUs (20 foot equivalent unit) each will run under the service.

This is the third direct mainline shipping service started from Chennai port this year. Plans for a direct mainline service to northern China are also on the anvil.

In March, Maersk Line, a division of the Denmark-based The AP Moller-Maersk Group and the world's largest container shipping line, introduced a direct weekly container service from Chennai to the US East Coast.