The biggest ship to ever enter the Port of Tauranga has an equally large welcome awaiting it. CEOs of three companies and Transport Minister Simon Bridges will be wharfside at Sulphur Point when the monster arrives Tuesday morning.

The Aotea Maersk marks the first call on the New Zealand coast of a larger class of container ship making the run from West Coast South America to Asian ports.

A 9500 TEU Maersk container ship similar in size to the Aotea Maersk, scheduled to arrive Tauranga tomorrow. Photo: Supplied.

Its arrival at the port of Tauranga about 11.15am marks the beginning of a trade partnership between Maersk, the Port of Tauranga Ltd and Kotahi which have collaborated to provide the shipping, the facility, and the cargo volumes to make regular port calls at Tauranga worthwhile for a ship of the Aotea Maersk's 10,457TEU container capacity - according to containership-info.com

Aotea Maersk is 347m long, 43m wide and draws about 14m. Tauranga is the only New Zealand port in which it will fit, and that's only after the port has spent about $350 million over recent years deepening and widening the harbor channels and buying new cargo handling gear, preparing for ships of its class.

Aotea Maersk is one of 11 ships deployed on Maersk Line's newly announced services which will offer New Zealand businesses direct import connections from the West Coast of South America and nonstop export access to Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan.

The ships are designed specifically for the South America and Asia markets with a high proportion of refrigeration plugs to move chilled products around this region. These are comparable characteristics for New Zealand. Aotea Maersk has more than 800 reefer slots.

At an earlier presentation Port of Tauranga Chief Executive Mark Cairns the expansion gives the port the opportunity to continue providing our customers with premium ocean freight solutions from a range of carriers.

'We're proud to be part of an innovative collaboration keeping New Zealand businesses competitive on the world stage,” says Mark.

'In addition, Port of Tauranga has been working closely with KiwiRail on upgrading train services to meet an increase in demand of cargo travelling between Tauranga and Auckland.”

Maersk Line Oceania Managing Director Gerard Morrison says a catalyst for Maersk Line bringing larger ships to New Zealand is the collaborative partnership with Kotahi.

'Maersk Line's existing Triple Star service will now link its northbound export calls into the company's South America – North Asia (AC) service offering a fast weekly connection to North Asia providing New Zealand exporters with a sustainable, direct service to important markets including Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan,” says Gerard.

The service calls at Tauranga from Chile. Next port is Kaohsiung in Taiwan.

The opportunity is enabled by the export volumes from South America to Asia which enables New Zealand exporters to participate in a large, efficient network that introduces the North-Asia direct connection on the Triple Star service.

'This generation 9,500 TEU vessel is more fuel efficient on a per-container basis and will reduce the carbon footprint of the ocean freight component of New Zealand exports by a minimum of 22 per cent per container unit, compared to the existing New Zealand industry average,” says Gerard.

Kotahi Chief Executive David Ross says the new era of big ship visits to New Zealand is possible through Kotahi's collaboration with exporters, Maersk Line and Port of Tauranga.

'Two years ago, Kotahi entered separate long-term agreements with Port of Tauranga and Maersk Line to lay the groundwork to bring larger, more sustainable and efficient vessels on to the country's key trade lanes,” says David. 'It's fantastic to see this now being delivered in a shorter timeframe than originally envisaged.

'The arrival of larger ships to our waters is a key milestone for New Zealand on its journey to become a more efficient export nation. The new Triple Star enhances services to Asia, and the recently announced South Pacific Express achieves a direct service to South America, enabling New Zealand to better compete with export nations which have big ships on their main trade routes.

'Building on the success of the Triple Star, this service provides a sustainable ocean freight offering for our customers as we work with Maersk Line, and a range of other carriers, to continually find the most efficient route to move products to over 440 destination ports or inland facilities within 139 countries around the world. We're pleased with this smart solution because it has brought efficiencies, by combining cargo and sharing the capacity, with other nations.”

The journey to larger ship visits spurred a focus to find efficiencies in land-based transport networks to better co-ordinate truck and rail movements says David. As part of this, Coda Group, Kotari's joint venture with Port of Tauranga, recently launched the Coda intermodal freight hub, Savill Drive, Auckland, which brings together import, export and domestic cargo flows into one place, to create efficiencies in the New Zealand supply chain.

Kotahi is New Zealand's largest supply chain collaboration, and works together with exporters, importers and logistics partners to create a sustainable, secure export supply chain.

Kotahi, is a joint venture between Fonterra Co-Operative and Silver Fern Farms, was launched in 2011 and its name means ‘standing together as one'.

Whether it is seafood, timber, pulp, meat, hides, wool, dairy, seeds or pharmaceutical products, Kotahi helps more than 40 companies get closer to their global customers.

Maersk Line is the world's largest container shipping company, providing ocean transportation in all parts of the world through 324 offices in 115 countries. Maersk employs 7,600 seafarers and 23,200 land-based employees and operates 590 container vessels. The company markets its services through the Maersk Line, Safmarine and SeaLand brands. Maersk Line is the holding company for MCC Transport (Intra-Asia) and Seago Line (Intra-Europe). Maersk Line is part of the Maersk Group, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Group employs over 88,000 people in some 130 countries. 2015 revenue: USD 40.3 billion.