THE seaborne reefer trade is the only section of the container trade that's growing, largely driven by China's increasing demand for meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, grows five per cent a year.
Maersk orders 14,800 reefer boxes as imports of perishables grows in Asia THE seaborne reefer trade is the only section of the container trade that's growing, largely driven by China's increasing demand for meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, grows five per cent a year. "China imported 79,000 TEU more in the first half than in the first six months of 2015. On trade lane growth, South America to China has grown 21 per cent in the first half, with 18 per cent growth in Europe to China trade," according to analyst Ronald Veldman with Seabury, reported IHS Media. Commenting on Maersk Lines' latest order for 14,800 new refrigerated containers that will be added to its global fleet of 270,000 units, head of reefer management at Maersk Line, Shereen Zarkani, said: "We continue to invest and modernise our reefer fleet to include the latest technologies in supply chain visibility and cargo care." The new reefers feature built-in Remote Container Management (RCM) technology that turns each box into a digitally connected device and provides enhanced visibility and care of cargo. This technology has been applied to the entire fleet of reefers. "So with more than 270,000 reefers in operation it has been a massive undertaking to get to where we are today. Since we launched RCM in 2015 we matured our internal processes and gained operational experience in handling the data. We have now entered the next stage and will be ready to offer this enhanced data visibility to our customers in the coming year," Mr Zarkani said. He added that Maersk Line was about to launch a fresh e-commerce initiative for reefer shippers in a bid to cement its global leadership in the carriage of perishable commodities from fruit and meat to pharmaceuticals.
