The first ship of the weekly Far East container ship service, connecting Kochi with ports in China and Korea, has called at the International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), Vallarpadam.
According to the Cochin Port Trust, the service handled 872 containers at ICTT in its first call itself, yesterday.
The ship, part of the Galex service, on its east bound route will call at ports at Shanghai, Ningbo, Chiwan (all China) Busan (Korea), Singapore and Port Klang (Malaysia).
"The service will be a big help to exporters from Pollachi, Dindigul and suburbs who export Coir Fibre and related products to destinations near intermediate ports like Ningbo and Chiwan," it said.
The direct sailing ensures savings of four days of transit time and savings in overall cost of transport and gives the much needed logistic competitiveness to the emerging EXIM sector of Pollachi.
One special feature of the service is that it calls at ports like Ningbo and Chiwan in China and therefore, inland movement to the ultimate manufacturing destinations in China are reduced compared to the usual services which calls at only the major port of Shanghai.
The Port Trust thanked the efforts taken by the Kerala government to ease the procedural delays at Walayar check post, and said due to this, the exporters in Coimbatore, Tirupur and Pollachi have started sending more containers to Kochi.
"The increase in container flow will give more business to the container trailer operators in Cochin and increase the commerce activities related to the port," it said.
Galex (GLX) is a consortium of four vessel operators - Emirates Shipping Line, KMTC, RCL and Hanjin.
It was launched with seven large vessels of average 6,500 TEUs each, providing weekly connection to dynamic markets in Asia, India sub-continent and the Middle East.
