International News : Asia

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission said Wednesday it has launched a fact-finding investigation into ocean vessel capacity and shipping equipment availability for U.S. exports and imports. The announcement came as FMC Chairman Richard Lidinsky and several shipper and carrier representatives testified to members of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation about th...

Singapore based NOL, the parent of liner carrier APL, is taking a $300 million loan for “general corporate funding purposes,” according to a statement the company made to the Singapore Stock Exchange Wednesday. The term loan has been taken by the APL (Bermuda) business unit, and is guaranteed by the parent company. The funding was arranged by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. In 2009, NOL ...

Taiwan-based container line Yang Ming has issued more than $150 million in bonds, the proceeds of which will help to pay down debt this year, local and maritime press outlets reported Wednesday. The line owes more than $300 million that must be settled this year, Lloyd’s List reported, with the company paying the rest of the debts through internal resources. ...

Delegates from the International Transport Workers Federation meeting in Berlin on Wednesday launched a campaign to persuade all governments to commit resources to end the increasing problem of Somalia-based piracy. The group also voted "to support the inclusion, where appropriate, of armed military personnel on ships in addition to the commitment by flag states of naval vessels," but sai...

Ocean carrier NYK Line on Wednesday announced a series of changes among its Group Americas executive team. President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Nozaki will return to Japan as executive vice president of Kinkai Yusen Logistics. Yasuyuki Usui will succeed him as president and CEO of NYK Group Americas. Peter Keller will retire and become a senior advisor to the board of NYK Group ...

Kirk The U.S. and Indian governments announced an initiative to encourage small businesses in both countries to participate more in bilateral trade. The initiative, “Integrating U.S. and Indian Small Businesses into the Global Supply Chain,” is part of the “Framework for Cooperation on Trade and Investment,” signed by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Indian Minister of Commerce and I...

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will travel to Japan on April 5-9 to promote U.S. agricultural exports to the Asian country. Vilsack will meet with Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Hirotaka Akamatsu, as well as U.S. exporters and Japanese importers. “My mission on this trip will be to continue to push hard to open markets and to bolster an open, rules-ba...

DHL Supply Chain said Wednesday it has opened a logistics facility for Sony Australia and Sony Computer Entertainment Australia in Sydney. The 20,000-square-meter facility will house the manufacturer’s consumer electronics, broadcast and professional and PlayStation products in the one location. “The new DHL facility will provide Sony Australia with greater flexibility in managing flu...

The House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime will hold a hearing Wednesday on whether there is sufficient ship capacity to serve U.S. foreign trade. The subcommittee is planning another hearing next week on the "state of United States’ merchant fleet in foreign commerce.” Wednesday's hearing is because of anecdotal evidence and media reports that "suggest that the ability of the...

Shipping line OOCL said in a customer advisory it would no longer provide chassis for container yard or store door shipments of import and exports originating or destined to facilities in or around Boston and Miami. "All motor carriers, either working as suppliers for OOCL or OOCL customers, must provide chassis for these shipments," the Hong Kong-based carrier said in an advisory to cust...

Maersk Line Ltd. said it will add a third U.S.-flag tanker to its fleet. The U.S.-flag arm of the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group said it will reflag the 2009-built Samho Moonstone, which will be renamed Bro Hawaii when reflagging process is completed in mid-April. The 5,664-deadweight-ton ship will operate in Asia spot markets targeting U.S. preference cargoes. Tuesday, Maersk Line Ltd. w...

The International Air Transport Association this week cut in half its forecast for losses in 2010 but said the airline industry’s recovery is still mostly benefiting Asian and South American carriers. “Helped by the strong year end we have cut our estimate of 2009 net losses from $11 billion to $9.4 billion,” IATA said in its monthly economic update. “More significantly we now forecast sm...

The Asia/Europe trade could see an influx of capacity over the next few weeks, according to the maritime news service Alphaliner. “These moves will ease the capacity crunch on the Far East-to-Europe market, which the trade has been facing since late December, following a strong recovery of demand figures,” Alphaliner said in its Monday newsletter. “The additional capacity could reverse th...

French container line CMA CGM is weighing offers from private investors to bolster its coffers after a turbulent 2009. The line confirmed Monday to American Shipper it has received offers from various interested parties. A report in Monday’s Financial Times said the carrier is considering offers from Louis Dreyfus Group (France's only other large ship owner), Goldman Sachs and Butler Capi...

The growing practice of slow steaming container shipping services has coincided with an unexpected deterioration in the on-time arrivals of vessels, Drewry Shipping Consultants said Tuesday. According to Drewry's latest Container Shipper Insight report, out of 1,600 ships tracked in the three months through Dec. 31, only 53 percent arrived either on the scheduled day of arrival or a day p...

Chilean carrier CSAV, one of the few carriers to report container liftings on a monthly basis, said it moved 184,000 TEUs in February, up from 124,800 TEUs in February 2009. Liftings were down for the second month in a row from 189,100 TEUs in January and 191,000 TEUs in December. Rates are slightly lower than they were a year ago, but have risen since last summer. CSAV said an index ...

Zim said it will introduce a service between Asia, India, Mediterranean and Europe. The Asia-Med-Europe (AME) service will employ a dozen 3,800-TEU ships and begin with the April 7 sailing from Shanghai. It will incorporate Zim's NEC line between the East Mediterranean and Europe. Port rotation is Shanghai-Da Chan Bay, Port Kelang, Nhava Sheva, Haifa, Ashdod, Felixtowe, Antwerp, Hambu...

Strong winds and sandstorms on Sunday cut traffic passing through the Suez Canal to its lowest level in two decades, international press outlets reported. Only 26 ships were able to transit the canal, which saw an average of 47 transits per day in 2009. It had been 20 years since so few ships were able to pass through the waterway, which is owned and managed by Egypt. Five ports along...

Terminal operator COSCO Pacific said Monday February container throughput rose 27 percent at the 20 terminals in which it has a stake. The company handled 3.2 million TEUs collectively at its 16 Chinese and four international terminals. There were significant gains at COSCO’s terminal in Nansha (98.5 percent growth to 185,000 TEUs), Dalian (73.2 percent growth to 127,000 TEUs) and Nin...

The first service for the startup liner carrier The Containership Company will call at the Port of Los Angeles, the port said Friday. The service will link Taicang, in China’s Jiangsu Province, with Southern California on a five-ship port-to-port loop, using vessels OF 2,500 TO 3,000 TEUs. The new container line confirmed the new service to American Shipper in late February, but said at t...

An ocean service connecting China and Taiwan with Australia’s three biggest cities will undergo an overhaul in late March, according to research by American Shipper affiliate ComPair Data. The CAS service, operated with ships from APL, Hamburg Süd, Hyundai Merchant Marine and Evergreen, will shrink from a six-ship, 42-day round trip to a five-ship, 35-day round trip. Most notably, the ser...

Japanese ocean carrier “K” Line on Friday announced changes to its executive team, effective April 1: • Hiroyuki Maekawa, president and chief executive officer, will become chairman executive officer. • Kenichi Kuroya will be promoted from vice president to president and CEO. • Keisuke Yoshida will move from managing executive officer to senior executive officer. • Shigeo Itay...

Cathay Pacific and sister airline Dragonair saw air freight volume rise 18.7 percent to 119,801 tons in February, compared to the same month in 2009. The cargo load factor was 77.1 percent, a rise of 12.4 percent, while capacity, was down 2.1 percent. For the year to date, volume has risen 24.9 percent while capacity has declined 1.5 percent. “We experienced a spike in demand prior to...

NYK Logistics Rus, a Russian-based subsidiary of the Tokyo-based NYK Group, has opened a representative office in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. It’s the first office in Kazakhstan for NYK, which in October 2009 took a 25 percent stake in Tranco Terminal, an Almaty-based car-terminal-operating company. NYK said it aims to develop its logistics business for the automotive sector as wel...

Japanese carrier MOL said Thursday it is adding five calls in the Far East to its CSW service connecting Asia to the East Coast of South America. MOL will add calls at Xingang, Dalian, Qingdao, Busan and Shanghai, with only Hong Kong and Singapore already served by the loop. The service sails around the southern tip of Africa in both directions, stopping at South African ports both wa...

Thirty senators are warning that U.S. dairy farmers and processors will be harmed by increased imports of dairy commodities from New Zealand that could result from upcoming talks to open up trade among several Asian nations. The United States and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are scheduled to conduct their first round of negotiations on a regional Asia-Pacific trade agreement later this m...

The Menlo Worldwide Logistics subsidiary of Con-way Inc. said it has launched a warehouse management and domestic distribution service in Singapore for MMD, a wholly owned company of TPV Technology, the world's largest LCD monitor manufacturer. The operation is located within Menlo's 84,000-square-foot multiclient warehouse and serves as MMD's Singapore domestic distribution center. Menlo...

Executive directors of the nation’s two largest seaports expressed dismay Thursday at the lack of funds dedicated to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach during the first round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants in February. The U.S. Department of Transportation gave away $777 million in grants, but none for the two ports. “I was shocked that L...

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission said Tuesday that China Shipping Container Line and three intermediaries have agreed to pay a total of $625,000 in civil penalties for alleged violations of the Shipping Act of 1984. The FMC said under a compromise agreement the parties settled and paid penalties, but did not admit to violations of the act or FMC regulations. China Shipping agreed ...

Evergreen Line and China Shipping said Wednesday they will start a new intra-Asia service linking China with the Philippines and Thailand. It represents a continued partnership with Taiwan-based Evergreen and China’s two state-owned lines -- China Shipping and COSCO Container Lines -- since relations between Taipei and Beijing started improving in 2008. The new service, dubbed CPT, wi...

The European Union and Singapore have begun talks toward establishing a free trade agreement. Officials are meeting in Singapore this week. “The proposed free trade agreement will strengthen economic ties between Singapore and the EU, provide new opportunities for traders and consumers alike and contribute to generating growth in our economies," EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gutch sa...

India, Brazil and Indonesia have topped the table of Transport Intelligence’s new Emerging Market Logistics Index, which the U.K.-based consultant released this week. The index ranks 38 countries from the developing world in terms of the attractiveness of their logistics markets to foreign investors. It measures the scale of opportunities through three indices: market size and growth attr...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it’s proposing to allow, under certain conditions, imports of all varieties of Fuji apples from Japan into the United States. Based on recently completed research, the agency has determined that the measures in place for Fuji (Malus domestica) apples imported into the United States from Japan would be eff...

Swiss forwarder and logistics provider Panalpina had consolidated profit of 10 million Swiss francs ($9.3 million) in 2009 compared to 114 million francs in 2008. Revenue fell to 7.3 billion francs ($6.8 billion) in 2009 compared to 10.6 billion francs in 2008. Overall, Panalpina transported 731,000 tons of air freight, 19 percent less than in 2008, and 1.1 million TEUs of ocean freig...

Panalpina said this week it has added 42,000 square feet of warehouse space in Los Angeles, expanding its space in Los Angeles to more than 100,000 square feet. The Swiss logistics company’s leased facility in Los Angeles has 27 docks doors and high-rise racking. “As companies are increasingly outsourcing all but core functions, this latest expansion in the crucial Southern California...

OOCL said this week in a customer advisory that it will limit acceptance of online booking requests to a maximum of eight weeks out "due to the continued tight space availability in the North American export market." Under the new rule, which came into effect March 8, OOCL said it is limiting acceptance of online booking requests via oocl.com or cargosmart.com to eight weeks. Shippers...

Containership owner and charter Seaspan Corp. said Tuesday it received two new ships on March 5. Guayaquil Bridge, a 2,500-TEU vessel, was built by Jiangsu Yangzijiang Shipbuilding. It is on charter to “K” Line under a 10-year, fixed-rate time charter. The Guayaquil Bridge is the first of seven Seaspan vessels that will be chartered to K-Line. COSCO Japan, an 8,500-TEU ship constructe...

Cathay Pacific Airlines said Wednesday its core airline business had operating profit of $36 million in 2009, a huge reversal from the $185 million it lost in 2008. Including gains from fuel hedging and sales of shares in a Hong Kong aircraft maintenance and repair company, Cathay had net profit of $604 million, compared to a loss of $1.7 billion in 2008. Revenue in 2009 fell 22.6 percent...

Logistics network Descartes Systems Group, said it had net profit of $14.3 million in its fiscal year ending Jan. 31, compared to $20.2 the prior fiscal year. Revenue in the most recent fiscal year was $73.8 million versus $66 million in the prior year. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company reported its results in U.S. dollars. Geographically 59 percent of revenues were generate...

Kenco Logistics Services, through its subsidiary Kal-Serv, has formed a joint venture with Schnellecke of America, called Team 3 Logistics, to provide logistics services to support automotive production in the U.S. Southeast. Schnellecke, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, is an established logistics services provider to automakers in Europe, China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. The ...

Damco said Tuesday it has won a contract to handle logistics and customs compliance in Vietnam for tire manufacturer Michelin. The three-year contract will see Damco, the logistics and freight forwarding subsidiary of the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group, handle Michelin’s exports from Thailand into Vietnam, inland transportation, cross-docking and distribution to customers in Vietnam. Damc...

Kolding While the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group was detailing a historic operating loss, headlined by a $2.1 billion loss for its container division, a noticeable development was emerging. Maersk is increasingly focusing on its business in and out of Asia -- and not just exports to the traditional consumption regions in Europe and North America. Maersk is quite aware of the potential of A...

The Chilean ocean carrier CSAV said it had operating losses of $599.7 million in 2009, compared to a loss of $133.5 million in 2008. It’s the second staggering loss to be announced by a major container line in recent days, after Maersk Line last week said it lost $2.1 billion in 2009. CSAV’s revenue declined nearly 39 percent to $3 billion, while container volume fell nearly 18 percen...

For a company that likes to keep a low profile, the past week has been a rather public one for Geneva-based liner carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co. On Sunday, London’s Financial Times reported that MSC Chief Executive Gianluigi Aponte was pinning rate volatility in ocean freight rates on shippers. He also refuted claims that MSC had cut rates at the beginning of 2009 to chase market shar...

California Assemblyman Steve Bradford, D-Gardena, has introduced legislation that would create a state incentive program designed to encourage new investment in trade and environmental infrastructure at California ports and improve the use of current trade infrastructure. The bill, AB 2687, aims to create new construction jobs and encourage the development of longshore, trucking, warehous...