South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co has been keeping up with its rent payments for the use of wharfs at Kaohsiung Port, even though the container carrier has applied for bankruptcy protection in the US, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, adding that it would meet with Taiwanese shipping firms today to determine how they would respond to the changing circumstances.
The shipping firm has sought bankruptcy protection after a plan to restructure its finances was rejected by its creditor banks on Tuesday last week.
As a result of the firm’s financial crisis, many seaports in Europe, North America and Asia have rejected Hanjing container ships, fearing that the company would not have sufficient funds to pay for its cargo to be unloaded.
The Wagon Group, an international trade shipping agency in Taiwan, said that more than 50,000 containers that are scheduled to arrive in Taiwan would likely be affected by the crisis.
The group said that two-fifths of the containers belong to Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) and Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), whereas the remaining containers belong to freight-canvassing service operators.
Hanjin, Yang Ming and Evergreen are members of the CKYHE Alliance, which consists of Cosco Container Lines, “K” Line, Yang Ming, Hanjin and Evergreen.
The group said that Hanjin’s ships, and the cargo they carry, have mostly been seized by its creditors, adding that the ships are having to wait outside seaports before being given further instructions on whether they are permitted to enter.
The trickiest part involves trans-shipment cargo, the group said, adding that it is stranded in other ports.
The ministry said that Hanjin accounts for about 3 percent of the global container shipping market, including 7.4 percent of the North and South American market and 4 percent of the European market.
The Maritime Port Bureau said that the wharfs that Hanjin rented at Kaohsiung Port have a capacity for 779,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), which is only 8 percent of the port’s capacity.
However, the company only has about 55,000 TEUs at the port.
So far, the company is not behind in its rent payments, the bureau said, adding that it would closely monitor the handling of containers at the port.
Meanwhile, both Yang Ming and Evergreen have terminated their partnership agreements with Hanjin, the bureau said, adding that they would dispatch larger ships to help transport goods if necessary.
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