At noon on 10 April, adequately surrounded by tugboats at the port, the largest container ship in the world, MSC IRINA, docked at the container terminal of Nansha Phase II of Guangzhou Port, breaking the earlier historical record of the largest container vessel docked in the area of Guangzhou Port.
Mediterranean Irina was independently developed by China and launched in March 2023. It measures about 399.99 meters in length and boasts a moulded width of about 61.3 meters.
The tallest single-shell container layer is up to about 25 layers, equivalent to the height of a 22-story building; the container capacity is about 24346 TEUs, and the containers can easily be connected to Hong Kong from Guangzhou along a straight line on the ground.
The berthing operation of “Mediterranean Irina” is equipped to be loaded with heavy home appliances, photovoltaic items, furniture, textiles, and other items produced in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area.
With the addition of this vessel to the fleet, there have been 13 large vessels enabled with a maximum container carrying capacity of more than 19000 TEUs on the Mediterranean AM2 channel in the Nansha Port area.
“Mediterranean Elena” is expected to depart from Nansha Port and take 23 days to reach the first port based in Europe, followed by Italy and Giatauro, enabling the seamless flow of the international China-Europe trade channel.
As the largest hub port in South China, the cargo and container throughput of Guangzhou Port Group went up by 1.8% and 2.5%, respectively, on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter, touching a “good start” as well as “stable opening” within the first quarter.
The number of foreign trade channels has hit 157, with a year-on-year boost of 138.6% when it comes to sea rail intermodal containers within the first quarter.
A network of port collection and distribution facilities for land and sea transportation, along with a port logistics service network catering to foreign and domestic trade circulation, accelerates the formation.
Reference: LWXSD, China Daily