The Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM-operated Indamex 2 shipping service has been added by Mawani to the Jeddah Islamic Port route.
In keeping with the objectives of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy (NTLS), Mawani said, “The commerce link is essential to the Kingdom’s ambitions to establish Jeddah as a major east-west gateway and boost its worldwide maritime connectivity.”
The busiest port in the kingdom will have easier access to important trade routes in the Indian Subcontinent and North America, including Port Qasim in Pakistan, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mundra in India, and Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah in the US.
The Liberian-flagged Swansea, a ship with a 6,966 TEU carrying capacity, made the inaugural voyage on the new service on January 11 from the Red Sea port. On January 29, the ship is supposed to arrive in Norfolk, according to vesselfinder.com. The earlier Indamex 1 service did not include Jeddah on westbound legs, only calling at the Saudi port on the “return” route, according to information on the websites of Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM. In order to improve the sector’s throughput performance and raise the Kingdom’s position in global logistics indexes, Saudi ports added nine shipping services last year, according to Mawani.
According to analysts, Saudi port development, which has set a target of quadrupling port throughput by that year under the Vision 2030 development plan, will focus on its west coast ports because they are perfectly situated to benefit from international marine traffic from the Far East to Europe and beyond, which preferentially uses the Colombo-Suez Canal route to minimise sailing timings.
