Jersey City, N.J.—Sept. 9, 2014—Evergreen Line is to partner with Mariana Express in launching a joint South China-East Malaysia (SEM) Service. The new initiative gives a boost to the service offered to shippers on this important sector of the Intra-Asian trade.
The SEM service will employ two ships with around 1,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of capacity each. Sailings will be weekly and follow the port rotation: Shekou - Hong Kong - Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia) - Muara (Brunei) - Bintulu (Malaysia) - Shekou. The first sailing is planned to depart from Shekou tomorrow.
As part of its ongoing efforts to improve network connections in this region, Evergreen Line will also take space on Interasia Lines' Singapore - Yangon (Burma) - Malaysia (SYM) service based on a slot swap arrangement. Providing Evergreen customers with an additional feeder connection to Yangon, the SYM loop will call at Singapore, Yangon, Port Klang, Yangon and then back to Singapore.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries boast some of the world's highest forecast rates of economic growth currently. In 2014, the ASEAN economy as a whole looks set to grow by 4.6 percent, and for 2015, the estimate is 5.6 percent growth according to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF's) World Economic Outlook report published in July.
The ASEAN community recently set as a priority the successful conclusion of negotiations with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand to establish the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). It is believed that this development will further encourage free trade and have the effect of driving cargo growth within the Intra-Asia trade.