The largest container ship travelling between China and the United States, a 200,000-tonne vessel named Benjamin Franklin, set sail from Guangzhou port Monday.
The 18,000-TEU ship, owned by the French container transportation and shipping company CMA CGM, can carry up to 18,000 containers and connects major Chinese ports including Xiamen, Guangzhou, Yantian and Hong Kong, with the U.S. West Coast, said Ludovic Renou, general manager for CMA CGM Shipping Co.'s south China region.
He said the company has put its largest container ship on this route because it was confident in the Chinese market.
China's ocean freight to the U.S. West Coast increased 5 percent last year and CMA CGM's freight volume surged 30 percent, he said.
CMA CGM offers 12 shipping lines in Guangzhou, connecting the Chinese mainland with Europe, North America, Africa and Southeast Asia.
Benjamin Franklin joined the company's fleet in December 2015 and will commute weekly on the China-U.S. route.
Guangzhou port reported 521 million tonnes of cargo throughput last year, up 4 percent from 2014, said Huang Bo, deputy chief of the port authority.
It is the fourth largest port in China in terms of container handling capacity. Last year, the port handled 1.76 million containers, up 6 percent year on year.
