Taiwan’s Evergreen is bucking the investment trend towards mega-containerships by planning to spend up to $700m on building a series of 3,000-teu vessels.

The Taipei-based operator is making its move based on its own bullish forecasts for the Asian region, where it wants to deploy larger containerships and is keen to secure early delivery slots for the planned newbuildings.

Informed sources say the company is in talks with shipyards in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan for 20 containerships of 3,000 teu.