OOCL executive sees 4-year recovery timetable

OOCL executive sees 4-year recovery timetable An executive with Hong Kong liner carrier OOCL said it could take four years for the carrier industry to recover from the current economic downturn.
   Ken Cambie, chief financial officer for OOCL's parent company, OOIL, said in a recent teleconference with JPMorgan that it will take longer for carriers to see the benefits of a turnaround because so many new ships are coming online over the next few years, the Hong Kong Shipping Gazette reported Monday.
   'We think the global economy has at least a two-year time frame before recovery,' Cambie said. 'We think the container shipping industry will probably take a further two years after that to fully recover, simply because of the enormous amount of newbuild capacity that is scheduled to come into the market.'
   With the global containership fleet set to expand by more than 10 percent a year for the next three to four years, demand won't be able to keep pace, he said.
   'Clearly there is going to be an overhang that will need to be absorbed,' Cambie said.