Ningbo Ocean Shipping Opens Ro-Ro Transportation Business

On August 5, the inaugural ceremony for roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) transportation by Ningbo Ocean Shipping Co., Ltd. (referred to as Ningbo Ocean), the largest liner shipping company in Zhejiang Province, was held at the Meixi RoRo Terminal in the Meishan Port Area of Ningbo Zhoushan Port. The LNG dual-fuel RoRo ship "CLEAN STAR," tasked with this maiden voyage, will set sail for Europe after completing the loading of over 5,400 new energy vehicles. This marks Ningbo Ocean's official entry into the RoRo transportation business and extends its route map to the European continent for the first time, injecting strong momentum into Ningbo Zhoushan Port's efforts to gather RoRo cargo and enhance its hub capabilities.

The "CLEAN STAR" ship is 195.6 meters long, 38 meters wide, with a maximum speed of 19 knots, and a designed capacity of approximately 7,000 standard car spaces. The new route starts from Ningbo Zhoushan Port, with stops at Gioia Tauro Port in Italy and Barcelona Port in Spain. It is expected to take around 20 days to transport new energy vehicles from China's eastern region to the European Mediterranean market, significantly improving export logistics efficiency.

In recent years, Ningbo Ocean has seized major strategic opportunities such as the Belt and Road Initiative and RCEP regional economic and trade cooperation, accelerating its capacity building and overseas market expansion. The latest data shows that the company operates approximately 120 ships, with a total capacity exceeding 1.9 million deadweight tons and a total container capacity of over 100,000 TEUs, firmly ranking as the top shipping company in Zhejiang Province and among the top three liner companies in mainland China.

Supported by its hardware capabilities, Ningbo Ocean leverages the core hub advantages of Ningbo Zhoushan Port to accelerate the development of transportation services from coastal and near-sea to transoceanic and deep-sea. Its container and bulk cargo route map has successfully expanded from Northeast Asia and East Asia to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, covering more than 50 major ports domestically and internationally.

Meanwhile, Ningbo Ocean's internationalization efforts continue to take shape—Ningbo Ocean (Japan) Co., Ltd. was officially inaugurated, and related subsidiaries in Singapore have been established. The bulk cargo business has expanded to regions such as Nigeria in West Africa and Mexico in the Americas.

The launch of this RoRo route fills the gap in Ningbo Ocean's RoRo transportation business, further promoting the formation of a global shipping service system featuring "world-class fleet + overseas entities + diversified cargo types," accelerating its progress toward the new vision of becoming a "leading Asian and globally connected comprehensive shipping service provider."

The opening of the new route is inseparable from the strong support and collaboration of port units. Ningbo Customs, relying on smart customs construction, implements paperless declarations and automated approvals to create a "seamless" clearance process. They also conducted policy briefings in advance, assigned personnel to follow up on berthing, loading, and unloading processes, and simultaneously carried out on-site inspections and health promotions. Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration, based on the "New Three Essentials" outbound "express service," customized a special guarantee plan, using an "online pre-review + on-site verification" model to conduct pre-checks on ship seaworthiness and vehicle loading assessments, improve emergency plans for new energy vehicle fires, and arranged maritime patrol boats to escort the ship during departure, dynamically managing navigation order in surrounding waters. Ningbo Border Inspection Station implemented a "pre-inspection, batch clearance" mode for vehicle inspections, offering domestic relocation exemptions and 24-hour one-time processing, while ensuring police deployment and front-line services to guarantee smooth customs clearance for vehicle exports at the RoRo terminal.