The Yangtze River Delta's Nanjing port has just won more business with the launch of a new service to South Korea. This comes on the back of news that the port started offering cash incentives from November to encourage more liners to use the port.

Yangtze Business Services (YBS) has reported that Hamsung Shipping launched a weekly direct service between Nanjing and Ulsan, South Korea, on December 1, deploying a 332TEU vessel. According to YBS, this is Nanjing's first near-ocean regular call in five years.

It said that four weekly near-ocean direct services exist already. COSCO operates separate services to Busan and Kwangyang, the two largest container ports in South Korea, as well as one service to Japan, while Sinokor operates a service to Busan and Kwangyang.

Shanghai International Port Group-owned Nanjing is one of just two Yangtze barge ports that handles more than 1 million containers a year. By the end of 2010, its container throughput is expected to exceed 1.4 million TEU. The other major port is Taicang, whose liftings, YBS says, is expected to reach 1.7m TEU for this year. Both terminals are situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze, so no doubt competition is fierce between them.

Nanjing has been earmarked by China's Government to be the barge hub for the lower reaches of the Yangtze, with Wuhan port as that of the middle reaches and Chongqing for the upper reaches.