COSCO SHIPPING Ports has signed a memorandum of understanding with CMA Terminals Holding in Shanghai, agreeing to seek cooperation in ports worldwide.

According to the MOU, preference will be given to ports that the Ocean Alliance calls. Both sides have also agreed to provide support in terms of business and service to the ports in which the other side has already invested.

The parent companies of the parties to the MOU, COSCO Shipping, a Chinese carrier, and CMA CGM, a French container shipping giant, are both members of the Ocean Alliance, a new consortium that will begin operations in April together with Evergreen Line, and Orient Overseas Container Line.

Zhang Wei, vice chairman and managing director of COSCO SHIPPING Ports and Farid Salem, executive officer of CMA CGM Group signed the MOU in the presence of Huang Xiaowen, deputy general manager of China COSCO SHIPPING Corporation Limited and chairman of COSCO SHIPPING Ports, Fang Meng, deputy managing director of COSCO SHIPPING Ports, Jean-Yves Duval, senior vice president, CMA CGM Asia, and Baocai Wang, president of CMA CGM China.

Since the establishment of the Ocean Alliance, the cooperation between COSCO SHIPPING Ports and CMA Terminals Holding has become closer. Both sides wish to create more opportunities in global port investment and operation. The discussion of cooperation began in early 2016 and on this basis, both sides have recently reached consensus and signed the MOU.

The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) concluded its review of the proposed OCEAN Alliance, Which was first announced in April 2016, allowing it to become effective on Monday, October 24, 2016. The alliance said it will deploy increased ocean carrier services from Asia to U.S. east coast and gulf coast ports. The plan for the alliance’s services, released in November and dubbed the Day One network intends to deploy around 350 container vessels with an estimated total carrying capacity of 3.5 million TEUs.