New direct route boosts Sino-UK trade

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Allseas Pioneer, a container ship carrying 1,631 containers of Chinese goods, at dock in the Port of Liverpool on 6 May 2022 (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A year ago in 2021, when Allseas Global Logistics started its Shanghai/Ningbo-Liverpool direct shipping route known as China Xpress, the service was a temporary move made to support supply chains that had been hampered by the covid-19 pandemic.

The company says it had never expected that it would end up operating vessels of its own on the route. But due to growing demand driven by booming bilateral trade, the British freight company has now leased six vessels and plans to expand.

The inaugural call of Allseas Pioneer, the company’s first freight ship in its fleet, carrying 1,631 containers of Chinese goods, arrived at the Port of Liverpool on May 6, 2022, marking another fruitful year of Sino-UK trade for the company.

Having set off from the Port of Ningbo in Zhejiang province, the ship, which can carry goods including furniture, construction materials, garments and other daily necessities, will help stock stores across the United Kingdom.

China Xpress differs from many other shipping lines in China that call at southern UK ports, or those that tranship via Rotterdam, which can add 10 days to the journey, said Darren Wright, founder and managing director of Allseas.

As the only shipping line that goes directly to Liverpool from China, which then feeds directly into the North of England region that accounts for 30 per cent of the UK’s trade, more than 60,000 containers sent using the route moved in and out of Britain during the past year, and supported more than 200 local businesses, Wright said.

The direct route linking China and the North of England was welcomed by anxious Chinese suppliers who had faced backlogs in their warehouses because of disruption to other routes. It was also welcomed by UK stores eager to fill their shelves as a result of shortages caused by the pandemic.

Wright said: “Traditional carriers were faced with equipment being stuck in ports around the world due to the pandemic. Vessels out of schedules, port closures, congestion and reduced labour were all major influences in the supply and demand imbalance.” The cost of shipping was also suddenly 10 times higher, he said.

Business was by no means easy for Chinese suppliers either, said Johnny Cheung, vice-president of Fastic Group, the local partner of Allseas Global Logistics based in Shanghai.

“The order had been placed, money had been paid, but the problem was how to get the cargo to the UK market,” Cheung said. When suppliers came to him, many were seeing their cargo piled up at factories and on docksides, waiting for transport, he said.

To ease the problem, the company chartered three vessels for the direct China-Liverpool route, and word soon spread. “Our transit time is two weeks quicker than anyone on the market,” Wright said.

Cheung said, “Time is everything in this industry; even one or two days can make a big difference.”

Now, the company’s signature direct shipping line provides a direct service every 10 days, with vessels capable of carrying up to 1,700 containers port-to-port, from cities including Ningbo and Dongguan, Guangdong province, to Liverpool in 30 days, according to the company.

This year it set up Allseas Shipping Company, a branch based in the UK, to enable growth of the shipping line service, with plans to work with more ports in China.

Previously published on Chinadaily.com.cn