Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
March 14, 2014
Bigger is better, was the message delivered by Alan Tung, the acting CFO of Orient Overseas (International) Ltd, parent of Hong Kong-listed OOCL, at the company’s annual results briefing this week. OOCL may not have the largest orderbook in the business…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 9, 2014
China’s economic claims have long tested the boundaries of reality, especially when it comes to GDP. The combined economic output of the provinces regularly exceeds the national GDP, and the discrepancy is sometimes breathtaking. In 2011, for example…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
December 5, 2013
Margaret Thatcher once said consensus was the absence of leadership. A way to avoid confronting the issues that needed solving. But for Hong Kong’s massively unpopular and increasingly schizophrenic government, the obsessive need to achieve consensus has become a business model.
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
March 7, 2014
Shipping supremo Ron Widdows had no good news for customers expecting freight rates to be stabilized by the emergence of the mega alliances. The CEO of Rickmers Group said at the TPM conference in Long Beach this week that container lines had lost the ability to control freight rates.
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 28, 2014
There must be an upside to owning a global container shipping line. Maybe employees get discount rates when shipping personal stuff overseas. Maybe the captain can wear an eye patch and chase the bosun around growling, “Aaaaargh!”. It can’t be the money…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 26, 2014
Cargo volumes will not grow enough this year to use up all the capacity flooding into service, and bargain basement freight rates are driving the carriers towards route-sharing alliances. Not to be outdone, China’s top two lines, Cosco and China Shipping…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 20, 2014
News on the alliances dominated headlines this week, topped by Evergreen joining the CKYH alliance on Asia-Europe. Taiwan’s top carrier joins Cosco, "K" Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin, adding an “E” to the new CKYHE alliance. The CKYHE will start…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 18, 2014
In 2011, the difference between the combined economic output of China’s 31 provinces and the national figure was the size of Turkey’s GDP. By last year that gap had “narrowed” to the equivalent of the GDP of Indonesia - almost US$1 trillion.
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 12, 2014
By early next year, all ocean-going vessels calling at Hong Kong could be forced to switch to a low sulphur fuel while in port as the territory imposes an emissions control zone. All the city is waiting for is for Beijing to file an application…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 7, 2014
Conventional thinking has always been that a strengthening US economy was automatically good news for Asian exporters. But if the Chinese economy began to tumble, it would outweigh faster US growth, said Frederic Neumann, HSBC co-head of Asian economic research.
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
February 5, 2014
Investors weren’t too distracted by the holiday spirit in the build up to the Year of the Horse and managed to shake off their hangovers while lunging for the sell button. Asian shipping stocks took a beating in December and the slide continued after markets reopened on January 2…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 28, 2014
China will have 12 free trade zones, Beijing announced a couple of weeks ago. Interesting, considering that Shanghai can’t even explain exactly what its own highly publicised free trade zone will be doing. So far it is all hot air and hyperbole…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 24, 2014
There was too much to lose for the contractor handling the Panama Canal expansion project to quit the job, said Manual Benitez, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) deputy administrator. “Nobody walks off a project this advanced,” Benitez said at the SMC3 Jump Start conference in Atlanta last week.
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 23, 2014
China’s wages are expected to increase by 10 percent or more this year, continuing a steadily rising trend that has seen workers’ earnings grow by almost 50 percent in the last three years. The impact of the growing payroll is being felt most…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 16, 2014
China Cosco said in a filing to the exchange yesterday that it has swung back into the black after two years of crippling losses, although it gave no figures. The latest numbers available show a January to September loss of US$330 million. Three…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 14, 2014
The beauty of mining bauxite is that it is almost always found close to the surface in horizontal layers and can be strip-mined. That saves bundles for mining companies that only have to scoop up the ore, crush and wash it and ship it off for processing.
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
January 7, 2014
Freight rates have risen sharply on the Asia-Europe trade as container lines levy increases in the build up to Chinese new year. Those carriers that haven’t already raised rates will be doing so next week by US$500 per TEU in some cases. The…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
December 19, 2013
While Ukraine digs itself deeper into political crisis, Beijing Interoceanic Canal Investment Management (BICIM) has been quietly getting on with business. The Wang-controlled BICIM has agreed to invest US$10 billion in the construction of a port and economic zone in Sevastopol…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
December 17, 2013
When it comes to IPOs, timing is everything. Catch a wave of positive market sentiment and you are cooking with gas. But get swamped by negative sentiment and you are toast. Qinhuangdao Port's debut on the Hong Kong Exchange last week unfortunately…
Posted to Far East Maritime
(by
Greg Knowler)
on
December 12, 2013
China Cosco Holdings, the mainland’s flagship shipping company, hasn’t ordered ships for five years. But rather than being a shrewd strategy, it is the result of a couple of years generating GDP-sized losses. In 2011, the losses hit US$1.7 billion.
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