NOL SHARES RESUME TRADING

NOL SHARES RESUME TRADING    Shares in Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines, the parent company of APL, have resumed trading on the SGX stock exchange in Singapore after their forced suspension of trading Aug. 10.
   The suspension was caused by comments made by the company to local media about a deterioration in results this year.
   Neptune Orient Lines issued a public statement on Monday in connection with the suspension of its shares and in response to concerns by the SGX exchange regarding information about the company.
   “As expected by analysts based on information readily available in the market and in the media over the past few months, the NOL liner business will overall be down compa red with last year, and therefore the expectations now are for much lower results than we saw last year, which was an exceptional year for the liner industry,” the Singapore-based group said.
   “Liner industry volumes in the trades to the United States and to Europe have shown little or no growth and freight rates have been under substantial pressure in the first half of this year,” NOL said. “The industry’s expectations for the balance of this year are that there will be some, but not substantial growth, in volumes.”
   NOL added that the whole container transportation industry “continues to be concerned about the increase in capacity and lower volume growth.”
   “We had higher capacity costs in the first half of this year compared with last year in accordance with our planned strategy, and we are dealing with the expected low growth by redelivering around 80 percent of chartered-in capacity as new chartered vessels — that are more cost efficient — come online,” the company said.
   NOL said that it will also focus on cost management.
   Referring to articles on NOL published in the local newspapers Straits Times and Business Times on Aug. 9, the company said that “despite the prevailing negative factors, the NOL group currently still expects to achieve an overall profit for the full year 2001.”
   'The statement to the SGX exchange was made by Marjorie Wee, company secretary of NOL. The NOL group, which comprises APL liner, APL logistics and a tanker shipping arm, will report its half-year results on Sept. 6.