China Shipping in joint venture with Baosteel

China Shipping in joint venture with Baosteel China’s largest steelmaker, Baosteel, has formed a joint venture with the China Shipping Group to provide Baosteel with ships for iron ore imports.
   The joint venture “will help Baosteel to control shipping costs and help China Shipping to increase market share,” said Li Shaode, president of China Shipping, in a story in People’s Daily, the newspaper of China’s Communist Party.
   The joint venture will provide Baosteel with two 300,000-ton bulk cargo ships and four 230,000-ton bulk ships. Baosteel, which relies heavily on iron ore imports, will use five of the ships and the sixth will be leased to other companies, Li said.
   The joint venture will be 51 percent owned by China Shipping and 49 percent by Baosteel.
   “The total loading of the joint venture is expected to double to 3 million deadweight tons by 2015,” Li said.
   Baosteel imported nearly 34 million tons of iron ore in 2007.
   China Shipping owns 436 ships with aggregate capacity of 17.68 million deadweight tons and moves 370 million tons of cargo per year.