China Cosco’s profit bonanza

China Cosco Holdings, the listed affiliate of China’s largest shipping line China Ocean Shipping, posted a fourfold growth in third-quarter net profit to RMB2.1 billion (US$308 million) on the back of increased container shipping volumes.
China Cosco shipped a total of 1.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of container cargo in the third quarter, up 16% from 1.5 million TEUs in the same quarter of 2009. As a result, revenue from container shipping operations during the quarter rose 84.7% from a year earlier to RMB11.5 billion (US$1.72 billion).
Lloyd’s List Daily Commercial News reports that between January and September, China Cosco’s total shipping volume rose 28.8% year-on-year to 4.6 million TEUs compared with 3.7 million TEUs in the same period last year. This led to an 89% jump in revenue from container shipping operations over the nine months.