Neptune Orient Lines' (NOL) container arm APL, which has about 10 percent of the Vietnam-US trade, looks set to build on its market-leading position with a launch of the first direct service from Vietnam to the US on June 3, Business Times Singapore reported.
The new weekly service was initiated by the 4,700-TEU APL Denver, which called at the recently opened Saigon Port-PSA deepwater container terminal at Cai Mep in Ba Ria Vung Tau province.
The Pacific South 1 (PS1) service will offer the fastest transit time from Vietnam to the US West Coast, taking just 15 days to reach Seattle.
Due to lack of deepwater infrastructure, Vietnam was previously served only by smaller vessels that feed into hubs in Singapore and Hong Kong.
The Vietnam market will still be served by APL's Singapore Vietnam Service and Haiphong China Express, serving the two hubs respectively, which means customers have one mainline and two feeder services.
Vietnam is also the only Asian market besides China in which APL offers its 53-foot D53-type container - the preferred container size in the US domestic market.
This enables exporters in these countries, which have sufficient shipments to the US, to use these containers right through the passage.
The US is Vietnam's leading export partner, with about 20 percent of all outgoing freight headed across the Pacific.
Cargo News Asia
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