The Premier Alliance is reshaping its East Coast 2 service to include Vietnam's Cai Mep port and Halifax in Canada, reflecting shifting trade flows from Asia, reported New York's Journal of Commerce.

Ocean Network Express said the EC2 service, operated with HMM and Yang Ming, will drop Xiamen in China and add Cai Mep on eastbound rotations. The first call will be made by the 13,154-TEU HMM Victory on December 22.

The EC2 will also reroute via the Cape of Good Hope instead of the Panama Canal. Its outbound rotation will end at Halifax, with Singapore added to the return voyage. The new schedule begins December 10 with the 10,055-TEU Hyundai Pluto departing Halifax.

To balance the changes, the EC1 service will add calls at Manzanillo in Mexico and Busan in South Korea, while the EC3 service will drop a second Halifax call.

The adjustments highlight growing US imports from Vietnam. Through August, exports reached US$122.6 billion, up 43 per cent year-on-year. Containerized exports from Cai Mep rose 20 per cent to 35,400 TEU in the third quarter.

By contrast, Xiamen's exports to the US totalled 194,895 TEU in the third quarter, down 15 per cent from a year earlier despite a rebound from the second quarter.