Maersk, a top global logistics company, has inaugurated a new international transshipment consolidation center in the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. The strategic move by the world's largest container carrier signals growing recognition from maritime companies of Shanghai's rise as a premier global transport hub.

Transshipment and consolidation account for over half the total volumes at many top-tier international ports worldwide. However, Shanghai – consistently the globe's busiest container port – has long seen this service contribute less than 20 percent of throughput. Industry sources attribute this to the city being dwarfed by easy access to the ports despite having advantages in automated wharves and Northeast Asia hub location assets.

Policy reforms are addressing this imbalance. Special provisions laid out last year by the State Council aim to optimize the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Area at Lin-gang as an open platform for global consolidation companies to set up centers and carry out diverse shipping operations. These followed the area's 2020 breakthrough that enabled the nation's first cross-regulatory area consolidation operations, lifting Shanghai's year-on-year transshipment growth to a sector-leading 18 percent.

Maersk's decision to establish the center at Lin-gang reflects these opening measures. The test run of the company's international transshipment consolidation business in Shanghai at the end of last year shows that shipments that were initially from Taiwan's Kaohsiung Port and transshipped and consolidated at Shanghai Port to Spain and the Czech Republic reduced the transit time by 10 and 8 days respectively compared to original routings.