Zhonggu Logistics, China’s largest domestic liner operator, saw its net profit grow by 214% year-on-year to US$240 million in the first nine months of 2021.
While container demand along China’s inland waterways is healthy, Zhonggu said that the historically red-hot market has created an anomaly of domestic vessels being chartered out to fulfill demand from mainline operators. This has resulted in an additional revenue stream.
In April, Zhonggu sold four Panamax ships to mainline operators MSC and CMA CGM for a total of between US$128 million and US$135 million. It turned out that after chartering out the vessels to CMA CGM, the French carrier and MSC began negotiating with Zhonggu to acquire them.
While the sale resulted in Zhonggu slipping to 17th among liner operators, with an owned fleet of 80,465TEU, the company has 18 ships of 4,600TEU capacity on order from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding and China Merchants Jinling Shipyard (Nanjing).
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
