Rickmers-Linie wins Best Shipping Line - Project Cargo in the annual AFSCA awards

Hamburg-headquartered Rickmers-Linie has won the Best Shipping Line - Project Cargo category in the 2009 Asian Freight & Supply Chain Awards (AFSCAs). In a gala event staged in late April at the InterContinental Hotel in Hong Kong, Sylvia Mak, manager of the Hong Kong representative office of Rickmers-Linie, accepted the award from Caesar Yiu, Thermo-King's director for global leasing in front of an audience of some 400 guests from the shipping, transport and logistics industry.

The AFSCAs involve key decision makers in the industry who take part in an independently verified process that comprises a nomination round and a voting round. Nominations were made by readers of the magazine Cargonews Asia who, to quote the publication's editor Greg Knowler, recognised the company's excellence in its field.

Rickmers-Linie vessels are a common sight in Asia, especially those maintaining the company's eastbound Pearl String Round-the-World service. This links Europe, Asia and the US with a fleet of nine identical vessels each equipped with twin 320-tonne cranes enabling them to lift indivisible loads of up to 640 tonnes.

The concept of a regular liner service catering for project cargo including heavylift shipments was originally formulated by Rickmers in 2000 and the first ship entered service in 2002. Sailings are every 14 days and to ensure service integrity, Rickmers now employs a tenth vessel in this service, similar in design and fitted with twin 100-tonne cranes. By offering regular sailings, project shippers can plan their shipments with much greater flexibility and know that a missed sailing is not critical since the next vessel in the schedule will be able to accommodate their cargo.

Rickmers-Linie currently has 14 newbuildings on order in China and these will allow the company to upgrade its existing Europe - Middle East - India/Pakistan service and extend its Pearl String concept onto other routes.

-ends-

Note to editors

Celebrating its 175th anniversary this year, Rickmers-Linie, based in Hamburg, Germany is one of the world's leading specialists in the global transportation of breakbulk, heavylift and project cargo by sea. The company belongs to Rickmers Group, which offers diversified activities in the fields of liner shipping, shipowning and shipmanagement, investments and real estate as well as maritime related services.

More information about Rickmers-Linie is available at www.rickmers-linie.com. Information about the manifold activities of Rickmers Group are available at www.rickmers.com.

A downloadable photograph to accompany the press release is available at http://www.dunelmpr.co.uk/Rickmers-photogallery-NEW.html.

The caption for the photograph reads:

"Sylvia Mak, manager of the Hong Kong representative office of Rickmers-Linie, receives the award for Best Shipping Line - Project Cargo from Caesar Yiu, director of Thermo-King for global leasing."