CMA CGM completes Asia-Europe offer with new FAL4 service

CMA CGM Group has the pleasure to announce the launching, on July 9th, 2008, of its latest service in the FAL network linking Asia and Europe : the FAL4 service.

Operated in partnership with China Shipping, FAL4 will deploy a total of eight 9,700 teu vessels, covering the following port rotation : Shanghai, Xiamen, Yantian, Nansha, Port Kelang, Zeebrugge, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Shanghai.

FAL4 comes in addition to the Group’s existing FAL services on the Asia-Europe route – FAL1, FAL2 and FAL3 –, thus providing optimum port coverage on this major trade.

It will be offering a new strategic call in Nansha, in the vicinity of Guangzhou, guaranteeing new opportunities in the rapidly expanding region of the Pearl River Delta.

This new service will also include a new inbound call in Zeebrugge, first discharge call in Europe, a port that is not congested and which offers one of the best intermodal connectivity in Europe into the Benelux and German Hinterland.

On the export side, the FAL4 will be the first service ever to offer a direct non stop link between Rotterdam and Shanghai.

“The launching ot the FAL4 service, just in time for the Westbound Peak Season, provides CMA CGM customers with a unique combination of fast transit times - for example 22 days to link Nansha and Zeebrugge – and original port coverage, with 2 new calls in South China and Belgium. The service is also connected to a wide range of in-house feeders, barges and rail services in Asia and Europe, guaranteeing a global offer in line with the Group’s door-to-door strategy” explains Nicolas Sartini, Senior Vice President Asia Europe Lines at CMA CGM.”

The first CMA CGM vessel deployed on the FAL4 will be the CMA CGM ORFEO, scheduled to leave Shanghai on July 22nd. She will soon be joined by her sisterships, the CMA CGM IVANHOE, the CMA CGM PELLEAS, and the CMA CGM BUTTERFLY, the Group’s latest generation of 9,700 teu vessels.

About CMA CGM - Led by its founder Jacques R. Saadé, CMA CGM is currently the world’s third largest container shipping Group. Operating a fleet of 390 vessels, including 100 company-owned, the Group serves 400 ports around the world. In 2007, it carried more than seven million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). With a presence on all continents and in 150 countries through its network of 650 agencies, the Group employs 16,000 people worldwide, including 4,200 in France