COSCO Container Lines, Asia’s largest containership operator, and INTTRA, the world’s ocean shipping electronic marketplace, announced that COSCON has adopted INTTRA’s eVGM Service to facilitate compliance by COSCON and its customers with a recently implemented global container weight requirement. The International Maritime Organization’s Safety of Life at Sea Verified Gross Mass (VGM) amendment requires every container to have a VGM—or certified weight—in order to be loaded onto a ship.

“COSCON is market-oriented and strives to ensure client satisfaction,” the company said, in a statement. “As a company, we will continue to comply with the latest international standards and methods to improve our service quality.”

“INTTRA is pleased to expand its excellent relationship with COSCON by welcoming the company to the INTTRA eVGM network,” said John Vitkus, INTTRA’s vice president of sales in Asia. “INTTRA’s suite of services has contributed to COSCON’s focus on reducing the cost of container transactions and has improved efficiency throughout their operations across Europe, the United States, and Asia.”

The INTTRA eVGM Service provides the operational capabilities for digital submission, receipt, processing and auditing of SOLAS-compliant VGMs for shippers and carriers. COSCON’s customers using INTTRA e-commerce solutions will be able to submit VGM information through a variety of channels, including EDI, XML, the web, and mobile devices.

COSCON is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China COSCO Holdings Company Limited. COSCON is the 4th largest global container shipping line, and operates more than 300 container carries with a carrying capacity of up to 1.6 million TEU. The shipping containers are called at more than 240 ports in over 75 countries and regions around the world.