China Ocean Shippi, shipng Co (Cosco) is tapping the international market for financing the building of some of the world's largest container ships. It is seeking up to US$500m to build a probable total of six ships of around 7,000 teu in capacity.
Recently, Cosco has ordered new container ships from yards in South Korea, Japan and China. The latest six ships were ordered from Kawasaki in Japan, but two of them were subcontracted to Shanghai's Nantong Shipyard.
Cosco believes the ships are necessary to maintain the company's leading edge as a vessel provider in a new alliance expected to be structured from January 2003 with Japan's K Line, Hanjin Shipping of Korea and Taiwan's Yangming Marine. The alliance is expected to rank among the world's leading container ship groupings, with more than 200 ships providing some 1m teu in capacity.