Asia/Pacific News
Shippers See Weak Chinese Exports
Despite some indications of growing demand for Chinese exports, some shipping company executives say they aren't seeing much increase in shipments from the country to Europe or North America, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Orient Overseas Container Line Ltd. (OOCL) [0316.HK] said its container-shipping trans-Pacific services volume fell 6.8 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, while volume on Asia-Europe routes grew 2.8 percent.
Consulting firm Alphaliner predicts a 1 percent rise in Asia-Europe volumes, after a 5 percent drop last year, and a 1.6 percent trans-Pacific increase, after a 0.4 percent reduction.
Tim Maersk, chief executive of Maersk Line's North Asia division, said exports from China to Europe have picked up, but, he added, "this doesn't seem to be a reflection of any underlying improvement in the state of the European economies, so it is probably not a sustainable trend."
Chinese exports jumped 14 percent year-over-year in December, but analysts note that one-time factors like backlogs related to U.S. port strikes influenced the month's results.
"We see a rally in shipping-company shares but the industry has not fundamentally improved," says Bonnie Chan, an analyst with Macquarie Securities.
For shipping companies, the low growth levels in volumes is exacerbated by expected increases in the global container fleet.
Last month, shipping services company Clarkson Plc. predicted that industry box capacity will rise 7.5 percent in 2013 while volumes for global container lines will increase only 6.6, including growth of only 4 percent on Asia-Europe routes.
