On Monday, MSC Katie sailed for the Mediterranean Sea’s west coast from Dalian Container Terminal. It inaugurated the first direct container shipping route connecting the area with Dalian (a harbour city in the northeast).
Dalian is connected to several important European ports, including Barcelona and Fos in Spain and France as well as Gioia Tauro, La Spezia, and Genoa in Italy. The route features 11 large container ships with 14,000 standard container capacity of each.
The shipping route, which follows the 21st-century maritime Silk Road, also travels through nations in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Trade between the region and European nations has benefited considerably from this shipping channel. According to Dalian Container Terminal Co Ltd’s general manager, Li Xiaoguang, this will effectively spur growth in their competitive industries, including machinery and electrical equipment, automobiles and auto parts, chemicals, minerals, instruments and metres, as well as grain and frozen food.
According to Li, the Dalian Port currently runs 105 container shipping routes, comprising 92 foreign trade routes that connect over 300 ports in 160 plus nations and regions.