Posted on March 8, 2022
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Starting in May, a Singapore-based shipping company will begin carrying cargo between north Florida and four Asian ports, officials said.
The start of service at the Port of Jacksonville by Sea Lead Shipping Pte. Ltd. will likely create between 800 and 1,500 jobs, Jacksonville Port Authority CEO Eric Green said Friday at a news conference.
The three ports in Asia are Nansha, Ningbo and Quingdao in China, as well as Pusan in South Korea.
Jacksonville is one of four East Coast ports that Sea Lead picked for what it calls an “Asia East Coast rotation,” designed to avoid delays that are affecting the shipper’s West Coast port of call in Long Beach, Calif. The others in the rotation, referred to as “AEC,” are in Newark, N.J., Norfolk, Va., and Charleston, S.C.
“Port congestion has been a challenge for everyone recently and the AEC will allow us to service ports that are more efficient for our customers,” Sea Lead Managing Director Cho Kit Wei said in written remarks, according to the Florida Times-Union.
