Qingdao Port in Shandong opens this year's first container line to Mexico. [Photo/WeChat account: Shandong-Port]

The vessel ALS FLORA, loaded with exports, slowly departed from Qingdao Port in East China's Shandong province on May 19, marking the launch of Qingdao Port's first container shipping route to Mexico this year.

Every week, the new route will deploy eight container ships with a capacity of over 4,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) each. Container ships will sequentially stop at three major ports on the west coast of Mexico - Ensenada, Manzanillo, and Lazaro Cardenas. Shipments from Qingdao can reach the port of Ensenada in just 20 days.

This year, Qingdao Port has opened five international container shipping routes to the east coast of the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Mexico. In the first quarter of the year, Qingdao Port's container throughput increased by 11.3 percent year-on-year, with significant double-digit growth in cargo volumes on the North American and South American routes. The number of operations of large container ships over 366 meters increased by 21.2 percent year-on-year from January to April.