COSCO BECOMES WORLD’s 3RD LARGEST SHIPPING GROUP

COSCO BECOMES WORLDÆS 3RD LARGEST SHIPPING GROUP    China Ocean Shipping Co., the diversified Chinese bulk and container shipping group, has become the “third biggest shipping enterprise in the world,” one of its senior executive said.
   Sun Jiakang, assistant president, said that the COSCO group controls a fleet with a total deadweight of 23 million tons, which puts it third behind the Japanese groups Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Nippon Yusen Kaisha.
   Sun said that COSCO now owns and operates over 540 modern commercial vessels, including container vessels, dry bulk vessels, general cargo vessels, passenger vessels, multi-purpose vessels, tankers, liquefied petroleum gas carriers and other vessels. The ships carry over 150 million tons of cargo a year and call at over 1,200 ports worldwide.
   Besides shipping, COSCO has also engaged in more than 10 other businesses, such as shipbuilding, power plant, steel, real estate, logistics, air transportation, travel, finance and information networking, Sun said.
   The group also has overseas stockmarket-listed companies, such as COSCO Pacific, COSCO International, COSCO Investment and COSCO Development, he added.
   The announcement coincided with the celebration by COSCO of the 40th anniversary of its founding, marked by a banquet in the People's Great Hall in Beijing for about 700 people.
   Wei Jiafu, group chief executive officer, told the gathering that COSCO has developed from a small company with only four owned ships in 1961 “to be one of the largest shipping companies in the world.”
   All of COSCO's achievements “have benefited from the government policy,” he added.
   COSCO was originally set up as an initiative of the Chinese ministry of communications to develop international shipping activities for the country, initially to repatriate Chinese people back from other countries. The government's “ocean shipping bureau” led to the establishment of an ” ocean shipping office” in Guangzhou, which became the government-controlled “China Ocean Shipping Company.”
   Jiafu mentioned plans to make COSCO “a new trans-national comprehensive logistics provider.”
   On April 29, COSCO Container Lines, the liner arm of the group, launched a 5,250-TEU new containership, the COSCO Antwerp. The ship, built by Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co., was the first fifth-generation container vessel built in China, COSCO said.
   The vessel is expected to enter service in October.