​Swiss shipper unveils new route from Vietnam to US east coast

To start in May this year, it would be the fastest shipping service from Vietnam and Yantian to the U.S.’s Atlantic ports of Savannah and Charleston, according to the company. The ships will sail through the Panama Canal to the Atlantic, the shortest route between Vietnam and the U.S’s eastern seaboard.

The service will relieve the pressure on other U.S. ports like Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are currently overwhelmed by an import surge that began in the second half of last year, according to JOC Group, a company that supplies trade information.

Data from PIERS, a database of U.S. waterborne activity, shows that the east coast’s imports from Asia increased by 1.97 percent in 2020.

In the last five years, Vietnam has gradually become a major retail supplier for the U.S. For instance, its share of footwear sold in the U.S rose by 11 percentage points to 29 percent while China’s dropped 11 percentage points to 30 percent, according to PIERS.

Mediterranean is also set to begin a container shipping service connecting Southeast Asia with the U.S.’s west coast in early April. It will start in Singapore and travel through Thailand’s Laem Chabang City, Vietnam’s Vung Tau City, the U.S’s Long Beach City, and China’s Shanghai, Ningbo and Xiamen cities, and return to Singapore.