The service will link Port Otago with Lyttelton, Tauranga and Auckland, with a newly-built 130m long vessel, Spirit of Endurance, transshipping about 1000 containers a week around the coast.
Pacifica chief executive Rod Grout said while coastal shipping had had some setbacks in the past 15 years, the company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dunedin-investment company Skeggs Group, had always retained its faith in the service.
Mr Grout said as international shipping lines were calling at fewer ports or hubs, there was a need to transship containers to other ports to link with shipping services.
Port Otago chief executive Geoff Plunket welcomed the addition of a new service to the port and also congratulated Pacifica on its initiative.
Pacifica last called at the port in about 2005.
Transshipped containers had been one of the port company's greatest areas of growth, he said.
Pacifica now offered southern exporters moving containers around the country a third option, along with road and rail.
Mr Plunket said the key to Pacifica's success was in linking the transshipment of containers to the needs of international shipping lines.
Sea freight handled 15% of all goods carted in New Zealand, but about half that was what Mr Grout called "on an ad hoc basis by in-transit overseas ships".
He said 2.5 million tonnes of internal freight crossed Cook Strait on trucks each year, but just 1 million tonnes went by coastal ships.
In comparison, 41% of domestic freight in Japan was handled by coastal shipping.
"The situation is untenable in terms of the mounting environmental damage, economic consequences and negative impacts on road and communities."
He hinted there could be further coastal shipping services.
"Provided its service is not constrained by further subsidies to prop up competing land transport modes, we believe it will be the forerunner of more coastal vessels to come," he said.
Spirit of Endurance would call at Port Otago each Saturday from November 15.
Mr Grout said it should be turned around in six to eight hours, depending in the volume of cargo it was carrying.
The 7464 tonne ship was yesterday still sailing from China, where it was built, and was expected to arrive in Auckland on Sunday and enter service on Wednesday next week.
He would not reveal the construction cost.
This was Pacifica's second coastal shipping vessel.
Spirit of Resolution operates a weekly service between Auckland, Lyttelton, Nelson and New Plymouth.
