Photo: Central China Logistics Hanya 1 goes down the water. (Source: Yangtze River Daily)
BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, will launch direct container shipping service to Japan later on November 28, according to Wuhan New Port Administration Committee.
The city took the move to shorten waterway transport cycle as local goods used to be transshipped in Shanghai, a coastal metropolis in East China for export, which prolongs its transportation cycle and sometimes needs 2-3 days.
However, as the city's foreign trade burgeoned recent years and 80 percent of its goods were exported via waterways or airways, opening direct shipping services for export goods are in dire need.
To the end, Wuhan blueprinted near-sea direct container shipping routes to Japan and the Republic of Korea as early as three years ago and promoted building 500-TEU container vessel for the river-ocean direct shipping services.
On June 12, Central China Logistics Hanya 1, the tailored container ship for the Wuhan-Japan direct shipping route moved into the water. The vessel is 125 meters long and 20.8 meters wide and enjoys a transport capacity of 7,900-deadweight tons.
Wu Shiquan, general manager of COSCO Shipping Lines (Wuhan) Co., Ltd. introduces that based on Wuhan's multi-model joint transport and Sino-Europe cargo trains, the opening of the direct container shipping service to Japan can optimize the railway-waterway transport channels from near-sea countries to Europe through Wuhan as a transshipment place.
Via the line, broader connections between the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the Silk Road Economic Belt can be formed, says an official with the Wuhan New Port Administration Committee, adding that it can also better satisfy the growing shipping demands driven by rapidly developing local trade and trade in central and west China.
Direct container shipping service is planned to be offered once a week, which will be increased upon the operation conditions, according to the official with the committee.
Recent years, Wuhan kept strengthening its role as a transport hub in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River. In 2018, the container throughput of the port of Wuhan exceeded 1.5632 million TEUs, up 15.31 percent year on year. From January to May of this year, 0.683 million TEUs of container throughput was completed, up 16.01 percent year on year. (Edited by Duan Jing, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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