EVERGREEN and Cosco plan to upgrade the jointly-operated China - Arabian Persian Gulf service in June to meet the surging shipping demand to the Middle East.

Starting from June, the two shipping companies will operate a voyage a week respectively and increase the voyage frequency of the service to twice weekly by slot exchanging, a company statement of Evergreen said.

Evergreen and Cosco will also expand port coverage and capacity of the service to improve market competitiveness.

Evergreen will deploy six 3,400 TEU vessels on the loop it operates, which is called CPG2, and the first voyage after the upgrade will be operated by the vessel Ital Glamour.

Ital Glamour is expected to depart in Qingdao port on June 11th and it will take it 42 days to complete an entire voyage.

Port rotation of the GPG2 loop is: Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian, Hong Kong, Tanjung Pelepas, Jebel Ali, Damman, Nhava Sheva, Singapore, Kaohsiung, and back to Qingdao.

While the GPG1 loop will be operated by five 3,400 TEU vessels from Cosco and its port rotation is: Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian, Singapore, Jebel Ali, Bandar Abbas, Karachi, Singapore and back to Shanghai.

In another statement, Evergreen said group chairman Chang Yung-fa had decided to donate US$10 million for the magnitude 7.8 earthquake happened on May 12 in Sichuan province, China.

Chairman Chang was in Belgium to accept the Commandeur De L' Ordre De La Cour, a national medal by the Kingdom of Belgium when the Sichuan earthquake happened, once informed of the catastrophe he contacted related authority in mainland China regarding a donation, the statement said.

Eva Air, the air transport arm of Evergreen, acquired permission soon after the earthquake from mainland China to operate humanitarian charter flights between Taipei and Chongqing. The first flight departed in Taipei in the evening of May 16, the statement said.