Facing capacity and container crunches brought on by Covid-19, COSCO Ship Holdings (CSH) endeavoured to find solutions for its customers, said the line.
[s2If is_user_logged_in()]CSH, the holding company of liner operator COSCO Shipping Lines (COSCON) and terminal operator COSCO Shipping Ports (CSP), launched intermodal services such as sea-rail and air-sea routes. To address container shortages, CSH actively increased the transfers of empty containers from overseas to relieve supply pressure.
The results saw CSH’s net profit increase 29% in 2020, to CNY13.19 billion (US$2.02 billion). While the container imbalance and the reduction of capacity in liner shipping affected the industry’s schedule reliability, COSCON adopted various measures to ensure its schedules were met.
These measures included new services such as the Sea-rail Express which saw container volumes exported from China to Europe increase 45%, while those completed on the China Western Land-Sea Trade Corridor increased by 74%.
The Shanghai Shipping Exchange, ranked COSCON first in terms of on-schedule performance in 2020, reflecting shipper satisfaction.
COSCON shipped 26.34 million TEU in 2020, up by 2.35% from 2019, including 7.46 million TEU from OOCL. COSCO Port’s throughput of 123.82 million TEU was relatively unchanged from 2019.
COSCON operates 536 ships with a total capacity of over 3.07 million TEU, maintaining its rank as the third-largest liner operator.
CSH said, “In H2 2020, we took the opportunity of the container shipping market’s recovery and added 40 vessels to global routes and guaranteed shipping capacity during the recovery period.”
Meanwhile, CSH’s container manufacturing subsidiary, China International Marine Containers, saw net profits skyrocket 1,350%, to CNY1.99 billion (US$304.75 million), as demand for containers boomed. The company sold 1,002,600TEU in new containers, up 12% from 2019, but profits rose steeply as container prices increased 40% during 2020, averaging US$2,322/TEU in December.
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
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