Demand for container shipping on the China-Mexico maritime route is opening up opportunities for medium-range shipping lines , a market traditionally served by large companies in the sector.

Information obtained by T21 indicates that at least a group of seven companies would be preparing a joint service to serve this route.

These are SeaLead Shipping , KMTC , Sinokor Merchant Marine , TS Lines , Regional Container L. (RCL) , Emirates Shipping Line and Sinotrans Container Lines (Sinolines) , which would have container ships with a capacity of around three thousand 20-foot containers (TEU) .

The service would depart from ports such as Shanghai, Qingdao in China, and Pusan ​​in South Korea, to reach the ports of Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico.

The commercial-maritime connection between the Asian region and Mexico is going full steam ahead. The ports of the Mexican Pacific received a total of 2,751,463 TEU of imports last year, 11.9% more than a year earlier, according to data from the port authority.

Of these, 90.7% entered the country through the ports of Manzanillo (with 1,698,437 TEU) and Lázaro Cárdenas (with 797,210 TEU).

The total fleet of these seven shipping companies is 339 ships and they have 874,414 TEU, according to information from Alphaliner . These companies regularly offer services between countries in Asia, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and, in some cases, even the United States.  

Maritime capacity

The arrival of these new shipping lines comes at a time when the average short-term ocean freight price on the China-Mexico-west coast of Latin America trade route  was below three thousand dollars per 40-foot container (FEU) at the beginning of this year.

According to the EAX index of  Eternity Group Mexico , freight averaged a cost of  two thousand 274 dollars per FEU  during January 2025, 25.25% below the average of a month earlier.

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