KOCHI: The International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) in Vallarpadam, the under-performance of which caused concern among the shipping fraternity, is showing signs of recovery with one more direct service to Europe beginning on Friday. The new service has been launched by the Shipping Corporation of India. The vessel will follow the Colombo-Kochi-JNP-Mundra-Salalah-Gio Tauro-Felixstowe-Hamburg-Antwerp-Gio Tauro-Colombo route.‘SCI Chennai’, the first vessel of this service known as ISE Service (service to Eastern European destinations) will call at the ICTT on Thursday. ‘SCI Chennai’ is a mainliner with a carrying capacity of 4400 TEUs and the routing will be one of the premier service of Shipping Corporation of India.With this, there will be two direct services connecting ICTT to European ports. In November 2011, Hapag Lloyd-CMA CGM consortium had started a weekly call at ICTT making it the first weekly service vessel connecting Kochi directly with Europe.“The new service facilitates direct loading for European markets from Kochi. The service brings in a minimum savings of six days of transit time and considerable transit cost. More importantly, transit reliability for export containers to various European destinations is ensured by avoiding dependence of Colombo,” said the Cochin Port authorities.“We are offering concessional tariff to the service and the vessel calls will be charged at par with rates in Colombo. The success of the new schedule will build up direct volumes for Europe and it is expected that other lines will soon commence with direct service to other European markets,” they said.
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