FRENCH shipping group CMA CGM has taken delivery in South Korea of the 13,830-TEU CMA CGM Corte Real built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME), the third in a series of eight vessels of similar-size.

The CMA CGM Corte Real is now the largest vessel sailing under the British flag. She will join the CMA CGM Christophe Colomb and the CMA CGM Amerigo Vespucci on the FAL5 service (French Asia Line) linking Asia to North Europe.

The company said these large capacity vessels allow the CMA CGM Group to meet the growing volumes on this trade lane that have been experiencing a rebound, registering 20 per cent growth westbound between Asia and North Europe for the first half of 2010 compared to the same period last year and nine per cent growth eastbound, reports UK's Transport Intelligence.

"With this new 13,800-TEU vessel, CMA CGM Group continues to develop a state of the art fleet allying modernity and competitiveness and allowing us to meet our customers' demand on the Asia-Europe market," said Nicolas Sartini, senior vice president Asia/Europe Lines, CMA CGM Group.

The CMA CGM Corte Real started its rotation on August 17 from Ningbo before calling at the ports of Shanghai, Shenzhen-Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas, Port Klang, Le Havre, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge, Port Klang and Singapore.

Source: shipping online