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Shippers listed on the mainland lose 5 billion yuan in firstquarter of year The global shipping industry has seen its woes continue to worsenafter experiencing a painful year in 2011. It reported widespread industry losses in the first quarter of thisyear, the result largely of surging oil prices and a glut in thesupply of shipping vessels. But as freight rates gradually move upwards, industry analysts saythey think a mild recovery for the industry is just around thecorner. In the first quarter of the year, Chinese shippers listed on themainland lost 5.06 billion yuan ($791 million), industry reportsshowed. China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co, the country's largest State-ownedshipping conglomerate, reported a loss of 2.7 billion yuan for thefirst three months of this year after seeing a historic loss of10.5 billion yuan last year. China Shipping (Group) Co, another large shipping company,registered a loss of 320 million yuan in the first quarter afterlosing 2.7 billion yuan in 2011. In the meantime, Maersk Line, the world's largest container carrierby capacity, reported losing $599 million during the first quarterof the year. In the same period last year, it had a profit of $424million. That result was even worse than what the Danish company hadreported for the same period of 2009, when the shipping industrywas reeling from the global financial crisis. But since the first quarter of the year is usually a slow periodfor the shipping industry, and since freight rates are graduallyincreasing, analysts believe the second quarter might bring somehope. The Baltic Dry Index, which tracks shipping rates for bulk goodssuch as coal, iron ore and grain, drifted upward to about 1,100this month after plunging to 647 in February, its lowest pointsince 2009. In the meantime, container shippers worked harder to push theirfreight rates back to a point that will alleviate their woes.According to industry data, the cost of shipping a container on theAsia-Europe route recently went up to about $1,700, increasing from$500 at the end of last year. "We will continue our initiatives to improve rates throughout theyear," said Nils Andersen, group CEO of the Copenhagen-based APMoller-Maersk Group. Wan Min, managing director of China Ocean Shipping's container arm,told media outlets that the company's work to increase freightrates "has paid off". The company plans to further raise itscontainer rates in the coming two months, a change that, ifaccepted by the market, will improve the company's performance, Wansaid. But there are still reasons to proceed with caution. Despite thecurrent oversupply of shipping vessels, new ones are still expectedto be launched into the market, which might snuff out the feeblerecovery, analysts said. China's weak increases in trade are also giving rise to worriesthat the trade volume on the Asia-Europe route may not be enough toshore up the shipping companies' recovery. Toward the end of lastyear, the country's trade began increasing at a slower pace thanbefore and its future prospects remain dim. In April, China's exports increased by 4.9 percent year-on-year,down from 8.9 percent the month before. Meanwhile, imports last month increased by just 0.3 percent from ayear earlier, slowing from a 5.3 percent rise in March. I am an expert from cartonmakingmachines.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Cardboard Making Machine , Corrugated Box Making Machine Manufacturer, Cardboard Making Machine,and more.
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