China Gateway Times: Ningbo Zhoushan Port Jointly Constructs a New Route "the Belt and Road" Mediterranean Shipping Company's East Africa Route Officially Opened

Recently, under the on-site supervision of Beilun Customs under the jurisdiction of Ningbo Customs, the "Mediterranean Gennarer IV" successfully docked at berth 7 of the container terminal in the Chuanshan port area of Ningbo Zhoushan Port, marking the official opening and operation of the East Africa route of the Mediterranean Shipping Company, adding a new route of "the Belt and Road" for Ningbo Zhoushan Port.
According to the plan, the newly opened East African route will deploy 10 modern container ships with 4500 TEUs. The route starts from Tokyo Port in Japan and passes through ports in major Asian economies such as Yokohama Port, Busan Port, Ningbo Zhoushan Port, and Singapore Port. It directly delivers goods such as automotive products, electronic products, chemical products, and building materials from Ningbo and surrounding cities to Tanzania and Kenya. It is estimated that this route can bring nearly 900 TEUs of export throughput to Ningbo Port in a single operation.  
To ensure the smooth opening of the new route, Beilun Customs provides comprehensive service support based on the demands of enterprises, actively connects with ports, shipping companies, and ship agency enterprises, and uses the "customs, port, goods, and enterprise" coordination mechanism to grasp the arrival time and operation plan of ships in advance. At the same time, continuous optimization of the ship quarantine mode was carried out. After the first ship of the route, the "Mediterranean Jenaer IV", successfully docked, customs officers completed personnel quarantine, health supervision and other work in the first time, effectively shortening the waiting time before ship operations.  
With the support of customs, high-quality and efficient terminal services and excellent port environment continue to release dividends. By relying on measures such as optimizing customs clearance processes and upgrading regulatory services, logistics turnover costs have been continuously reduced, "said Wu Guangji, Manager of the Operations Department of Ningbo Zhoushan Port North Sanji.  
According to statistics, in the first 10 months of this year, Ningbo Customs has supervised more than 20000 international navigation vessels entering and leaving the country. With the opening and operation of this route, the total number of container routes of Ningbo Zhoushan Port has reached 308, including 132 "the Belt and Road" routes.  
Next, Beilun Customs will deepen the "Smart Customs Strong Country" action, focus on optimizing the quarantine mode, continuously improve the level of enterprise assistance services, and assist Ningbo Zhoushan Port in further weaving an international air route network.  
(Our correspondent Wu Mengkai, Zou Jiahang, and He Yixing)