JEDDAH, 31 May 2005 — A new shipping service provides a direct service to Jeddah. It’s the Asia Mediterranean Express (AME) eastbound service to the Middle East, which operates to Jeddah and then on to Jebel Ali.

“This provides excellent transit times between the two regions,” Norasia President & CEO Vikas M. Khan said at the launch of its AME service at Leylaty Hall on Sunday night. Norasia Container Lines Ltd., a member of CSAV Group, and Globe Marine Services Co., (GMS) jointly organized the launch ceremony.

Norasia had ordered 18 new container ships from Japanese and Korean companies. “Four of them have been received and the remaining 14 will be delivered to us before the end of 2006,” Khan said.

“Speaking on behalf of the GMS, its General Manager Engineer Emad Fareed Abdul Jawad said: “Globe Marine Service Co. assures our principals that we’ll do our best to reach to each and every customer in the trade for whom this service matters.” GMS is now an ISO certified organization and its quality policy states that it will provide service with outstanding quality, consistent with customer requirements and regulatory standards, he said.

“We’ve provided our agency department the best and the most updated IT systems with the support of a full-fledged in-house IT team.

The CSAV (Compania Sud Americana de Vapores S.A.) Group, founded in 1872, is the largest and one of the oldest shipping companies in South America. CSAV’s services include national and international shipping service for general cargo, containers, bulk, vehicles, frozen and refrigerated cargo.

CSAV, based in Chile, has continued to expand, reaching revenue of $2.1 billion in 2003, thus becoming one of the world’s top 20 shipping lines it operates over 90 vessels on a global basis, while an aggressive shipbuilding plan is in place for delivery of some 22 large container ships between 2004 and 2007. Most of these new ships are for Norasia services.

Norasia, with its head office in Hong Kong, has more than 22 years of experience in providing service between Europe and the Gulf and is one of the top five reefer operators from Europe to the Kingdom, offering the equipment and expertise needed for this trade.

A direct service from Felixstowe to Jeddah in only nine days and Felixstowe to Jebel Ali in 14 days provides outstanding options for cargo operators.

From Jebel Ali, a dedicated feeder service provides a range of options for onward transit to the Upper Gulf, meaning that from Northern Europe there is a wide range of options to get cargo to this fast growing region.

The AME is Norasia’s exclusively operated service that links North and South China and Southeast Asia with Europe, with port calls in the Middle East on the return leg. Norasia will deploy all nine vessels in the service, with capacity of around 4,000 TEUs and speeds of 24 knots.

The service originates in Xingang and its ports of call include Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Yantian, Port Klang, Le Havre, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge, Felixstowe, Jeddah, Jebel Ali, Port Klang, Yantian, and back to Xinagang.

With a long and vast experience in the reefer trade, Norasia is a key player in this area and backs this up with the experience and equipment for this trade, including a state of the art reefer fleet of over 30,000 units, which includes “controlled atmosphere” reefer units.

Norasia is building its capability as a leading global container shipping line. This is reflected in container volume growth of 30 percent in 2003 over 2002, while sales increased by 50 percent in 2003 over 2002.

Norasia’s presence on the East-West tradelines is growing considerably. In 2003, cargo carried form Asia to North Europe increased by a remarkable 59 percent compared to the year before, while trans-Pacific volumes rose by 29 percent.

The growth has been fueled by several factors including the financial stability and vision provided by the CSAV Group, a focus on organizational optimization within the company, the introduction of new services, reliability of services, financial commitment and network synergy with CSAV.

Norasia has announced the launch of eight new services in the last 18 months, as it responds to the demands of its customers for increased frequency, direct ports, and new destinations. This has seen the company consistently growing at a much faster rate than the overall market.