April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Hyundai Merchant Marine said on Feb. 28 it will launch a regular service linking Asia to Northern Europe in early April.

HMM said it opened a new Asia-Northern Europe loop in accordance with the increased demand for express service.

The Asia-Europe Express is an independent service operated by HMM outside of its strategic cooperation with 2M, the world’s largest shipping alliance.

The Korean shipping firm has, until now, used 2M vessels in European trade.

HMM said it will deploy a total of 10 Panamax vessels with a capacity of 4,600 twenty-foot equivalent units for the AEX service, with the first voyage scheduled for April 8 from South Korea‘s southeastern port of Busan. TEU is a measurement of a ship’s cargo capacity.

The port rotation of the new service is Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Kaohsiung, Shenzhen, Singapore, Colombo, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Southampton, Singapore, Hong Kong.

HMM said transit from Busan to Rotterdam takes 30 days, while transit from Busan to Hamburg takes 32 days.

  By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)