DP WORLD's London Gateway, the new container port on the Thames Estuary, is handling its first official ship this week with the arrival of the 5,000 TEU MOL Caledon.

The vessel, which is deployed on the north-south trade between Europe and South Africa, has also reportedly shifted its arrival from nearby Tilbury.

The arrival of the MOL Caledon suggests that rather than compete directly with Britain's largest container port at Felixstowe, London Gateway will focus on taking business away from the smaller ports, says the UK's Transport Intelligence.

But to develop its ambition to be at the centre of British supply chains, handling three million TEU a year, London Gateway's nearby logistics should prove instrumental to realise those ambitions.

When the London Gateway project was conceived, world trade was growing rapidly and Britain appeared to be facing a shortage of container port capacity. Nowadays, world trade is growing at a much slower rate of two per cent and rival ports have implemented measures to defend their market share.

Felixstowe is engaged in a project to handle very large containerships and boost its container handling capacity such as by investing in a new rail terminal and higher intensity of service.

Southampton also has the potential to expand its capabilities, and both the Maasvlakte2 development at Rotterdam and the existing Antwerp facilities have the ability to compete for UK traffic.