[ TWO NEW CONSORTIA CALL AT THE SEAPORT ]

The sailing of the OOCL FORTUNE on the behalf of the GLOBAL ALLIANCE c
ontainer consortium on Monday(February 5th, 1996) marked the beginning
of the first direct service from and to China with weekly departures
from Bremerhaven.
The “China-Europe Express”shortens transit times to and from the Peo
ple’s Republic and strengthens Bremerhaven’s position as intermodal
hub port in container traffic. A second weekly service provided by thi
s consortium, the “Asia-Europe Express”, also calls at Bremerhaven.
In addition, another container consortium, Grand Alliance, has also pu
t the seaport on its Far East schedule.
The GLOBAL ALLIANCE consortium is composed of five shipping lines: the
American President Lines(APL), Malaysian International Shipping Corp.
(MISC), the Dutch Nedlloyd Lijnen, the Orient Overseas Container Line(
OOCL) as well as the Mitsui O.S.K. Lines(MOL). The “China-Europe Expr
ess” currently offers the fastest transit times between northern Euro
pe and China. The ports of call in the People’s Republic are Shanghai
and Yantian and the schedule also includes Hong Kong, Singapore and J
eddah. Nine ships will be used with capacities of up to 3600 TEU. The
only German port is Bremerhaven.
GLOBAL ALLIANCE’s “Asia-Europe Express”provides a regular direct co
nnection between Bremerhaven and the Far East ports of Hakata, Busan,
Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Singapore and Port Kelang. Eight ships with capa
cities of up to about 4500TEU are assignated to this scheduled service
, which has been operating via Bremerhaven since February 1995.
The partners cooperating in the GRAND ALLIANCE consortium’s Far East
service are Neptune Orient Lines(NOL), Nippon Yusen Kaisha(NYK) and Ha
pag-Lloyd. The British shipping line P&O will join the consortium as t
he fourth partner around the middle of the year. In “Loop C” Bremerh
aven has a direct weekly link to Colombo, Port Kelang, Singapore, Hong
Kong and Kaosiung. Eight container ships with capacities of up to 442
2TEU are used for this service.