Taipei: Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines is planning to open a route to western Latin America on its own, SinoShip News can reveal.
In April the line pulled out of a joint service with Cosco, Evergreen and PIL that called Asia, Mexico and the west coast of South America.
The new service will call at Kaohsiung, Shekou, Hong Kong, Ningbo, Shanghai, Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas, Buenaventura, Guayaquil, Callao, Manzanillo (Mex), Kaohsiung, using ships of around 1,500 teu with a first sailing due on 7 July.
Speculation that it might resume the service but with Japan’s NYK has been quashed by officials in Taipei.
“Based on our plans at present, the route will be operated on our own, but the final layout including which ship will be deployed on it will be fixed later,” an official from Wai Hai told SinoShip News. “The new route is planned to be launched at the beginning of July,” she added.
Wan Hai, traditionally an intra-Asia player, has one joint service to Europe and two to North America. [27/06/12]
