COSCO welcomes U.S./China maritime agreement

COSCO welcomes U.S./China maritime agreement    COSCO Container Lines, part of the government-owned China Ocean Shipping Co. group, has welcomed the signing of the new five-year bilateral maritime agreement between the United States and China.
   U.S. Transportation Secretary, Norman Mineta, and China’s Minister of Communications, Zhang Chunxian, signed the agreement on Monday.
   For Chinese government-owned carriers, the agreement is expected to remove the restrictions on their pricing decisions contained in the “controlled carriers” rules of the U.S., targeted at government-controlled shipping lines.
   The agreement does not come into effect until the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission rules favorably on the pending requests of Chinese carriers for partial relief from the “controlled carrier” restrictions, and until China takes steps to harmonize its rules in accordance with the agreement.
   COSCO said that the agreement represents a “long-awaited culmination of discussions and negotiations” that have taken place over the past five years between the two nations.
   The previous U.S./China bilateral maritime agreement expired in 1998.