SM Line, South Korean shipping line plans to begin serving the Port of Portland in January, marking a resumption of weekly container service at the port for the first time in nearly four years. The service will handle less than 25 percent of the containers that used to pass through the port, but the hope is that activity will build over time. The previous operator, Hanjin, had been shipping 1,600 containers weekly, transporting apparel for Nike, Columbia Sportswear and others and sending Northwest agricultural products to Asia. After the container shipping stopped, exporters had to send their products by rail to ports in Seattle or Tacoma.
