Tauranga will be the New Zealand port of call for Maersk's new service from North Asia to South America. ​

June 24, 2016 - New Zealand will be a "bus stop on the route" of a new south-bound weekly shipping service between North Asia and the west coast of Latin and South America. Maersk's Triple Star will arrive from North Asia on July 24, stopping at Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. It will call at Tauranga, picking up goods from ports around the country and carry on to South America, calling at Peru, Chile, Panama, Colombia and Mexico.

Maersk Line Oceania's trade and marketing director Hennie Van Schoor​ said the new service would benefit importers of goods from North Asia and exporters to South America. New Zealand importers tended to bring in retail goods such as electronics from North Asia, and New Zealand exporters tended to send wood, dairy and other foodstuffs to South America. Van Schoor said the beauty of the South American leg, called the South Pacific Express, was its speed.

Currently it took about 35 days to send goods to Latin America from New Zealand and now it would only take 13. For New Zealand importers and exporters, their goods would be able to "go along for the ride" on an otherwise expensive service. "The size of the vessels, the space that's on board is not dependent on what New Zealand will fill or can fill. "It really means we can tap into a larger network, meaning that the efficiencies of those networks are passed to New Zealand exporters and importers."