BUSAN, KOREA - Ultra-large container vessels capable of carrying more than 15,000 containers at a time are visiting the Port of Busan in droves. More and more shipping companies are opting Busan as their preferred port of call as it is equipped with the world's best port facilities with more than 15 meters of depth.
The effort of the Busan Port Authority to attract more overseas ships to expand the cargo handling volume also worked to its advantage over rival ports such as Shanghai.
According to the Busan Port Authority on May 1, Maersk Group, the world's largest container ship operator, has selected Busan as a port of call for its newly launched container vessel capable of transporting up to 18,000 containers. On April 30, another container ship with a capacity of 15,500 TEU from the Danish shipping company, the Ebba Maersk, came into port. Earlier on April 19, a 16,022-TEU container vessel belonging to France's CMA CGM S.A. entered into the Busan New Container Terminal.
For three months this year, Busan hosted a total of 52 container ships with a capacity of more than 13,000 TEU, up 21 percent from the same period last year. For the month of March alone, the port handled 1,556,000 container cargoes, a record high. Chung Hyun-don, Busan Port Authority's senior manager responsible for overseas investment, said, "This shows to the world that the Port of Busan can cope with ultra-large container ships with little problem."
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