MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company together with Maersk Line and CMA-CGM, the world's three major shipping operators, are reorganising their respective services between China and the US West Coast with the launch of three separate joint services to be introduced in April 2008.

The first service called the Eagle Express will cover Central China, South China, calling at Hong Kong, Yantian, Kaohsiung, Shanghai, Qingdao, and Los Angeles.

The second service called the New Orient Express will cover Central and North China, calling at Dalian, Tianjin Xingang, Shanghai, Ningbo, Long Beach, and Oakland.

Each of these two new services will deploy five 8,000 TEU vessels with four vessels operated by Maersk Line, four vessels operated by MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company and two vessels operated by CMA-CGM.

In addition MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company and CMA-CGM will slot charter on Maersk Line's service which will cover ports in Korea and Japan to North America. This service will be operated by five 4,000 TEU vessels.

This service called the Sunrise will call at Kwangyang, Busan, Kobe, Shimizu, Nagoya, Yokohama, Los Angeles and Oakland

This new initiative will allow MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, Maersk Line and CMA-CGM to rationalise their existing Trans Pacific US West Coast services, while providing customers with extensive port coverage in China, Japan and Korea with excellent weekly direct connections and shorter transit times.