Last week, the COSCO Ro-Ro ship Shengshi docked at the northern port of Bremerhaven and began its first trial operation to expand service to Europe. COSCO currently has 24 new ro-ro orders for which deliveries are scheduled to begin in mid-2024. In the future, the fleet will consist of 29 ships.
Bremerhaven will become an important entry port for COSCO SHIPPING in Europe.
In this trial run, the BLG AutoTerminal Bremerhaven team was responsible for the unloading, handling and staging of the 530 imported vehicles.
According to COSCO SHIPPING Motor Transport, Bremerhaven is the last stop of the European liner "COSCO Shengshi" maiden voyage. A total of 3,731 Chinese-made commercial vehicles were loaded at the ports of Shanghai and Xiamen, including more than 2,700 new energy vehicles. It left the port of Xiamen on the evening of July 10, crossed the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal, and called at ports in Britain, Belgium and Germany during its 43-day voyage.
At present, it is difficult to book space on ro-ro ships and the freight is high; Container booking is relatively easy, and the freight rate is not so expensive, but the loading and unloading operation is complicated and prone to cargo damage; Railway transportation from China to Europe has insufficient space and high cost.
Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) show that in the first half of this year, China exported 2.14 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 75.7%. Among them, the number of new energy vehicles was 534,000, a year-on-year increase of 1.6 times.
With the lifting of restrictions on the transportation of new energy vehicles on China-Europe freight trains in October 2022, many automotive OEMs have also set their sights on rail transportation. According to data released by China National Railway Group, in the first half of 2023, a total of 119,000 finished trains were shipped by China-Europe freight trains. The data comparison shows that the cars transported by rail account for about 5.6% of the total automobile exports.