Grand Alliance – inaugural arrival from Vietnam - “NYK Lodestar” links Ho-Chi-Minh City and Hamburg

On Wednesday, 27 April 2011 at 18:00 hours, the “NYK Lodestar” docked at the HHLA Container-Terminal Altenwerder (CTA). Her cargo included containers shipped directly from Vietnam, to be unloaded in Hamburg. The “NYK Lodestar” was the first vessel of the Grand Alliance consortium of shipping companies to call at the Vietnamese deep-water port of Cai Mep, located about 60 kilometres southeast of Ho-Chi-Minh City, as part of their Asia-Europe service.

The Grand Alliance, which includes the Japanese container shipping company NYK Line as well as Hapag-Lloyd and the Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), until now had transhipped Vietnamese cargo via Singapore to northern Europe. With this new direct connection, the partner shipping companies are responding to the growing volume of freight from the southeast Asian countries and the increasing demand for shorter transit times.

“The manufacture of textiles, shoes and small furniture has developed into a rapidly growing, high-volume core industry in Vietnam,” explains Klaus-Peter Barth, Managing Director of NYK Line (Deutschland) GmbH. “With a transit time of only 25 days from Cai Mep to Hamburg, we are now providing our customers a most attractive transport option, with weekly departures.

The rotation in Loop D of the Asia-Europe service includes the following ports: Busan (South Korea), Qingdao (China), Shanghai (China), Ningbo (China), Shekou (China), Yantian (China), Cai Mep (Vietnam), Singapore, Suez Canal, Southampton (Great Britain), Le Havre (France), Hamburg (Germany), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Suez Canal, Singapore, Shanghai, Busan.

After around 2,300 container moves, the “NYK Lodestar” will depart the CTA on 28 April, at 10.00 pm. The ship, built in 2001 by the Samsung Shipyard Geoje Island in South Korea, is just under 300 metres in length and has a deadweight tonnage of 75,200 GRT and slot capacity of 6,422 TEU.

Background information on the Hamburg/Vietnam trading partnership

In 2010, Vietnam's Gross Domestic Product was just under 105 billion U.S. dollars (preliminary estimate), up by 6.8 per cent year-on-year. Germany is Vietnam’s biggest trading partner by far within the European Union. Principal exports from Vietnam to Germany are shoes and clothing. Germany is Vietnam’s biggest market worldwide for both coffee and black pepper. The trading relationship between Hamburg and Vietnam holds great potential, with imports from Vietnam via the Port of Hamburg having developed particularly strongly. Last year alone, the volume of containers in the Vietnam traffic handled at terminals in Hamburg increased by almost 48 per cent. While Vietnam exports mainly raw materials and basic consumer goods, cargo destined for the southeast Asian country loaded in Hamburg consists chiefly of investment goods and finished products. Including this new service operated by the Grand Alliance, there are currently a total of seven direct container and general cargo services linking the metropolis on the river Elbe with Vietnam.

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