Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) yesterday inked a partnership agreement with Thailand’s Regional Container Lines Group aimed at pooling the companies’ resources to weather a persisting downturn in the sector.
Due to slowing growth in developed markets, the companies are hoping to further tap the Asian market, where growth has been more resilient.
The companies yesterday announced plans to expand bilateral cooperation on terminal operations in Taiwan and Thailand, slot exchange and vessel chartering services, as well as laden trucking and equipment interchange contracts.
Photo: Huang Chien-hua, Taipei Times
The agreement is to improve vessel utilization, reduce leasing and other operational costs, and expand coverage and quality of liner services, the companies said.
“We are expecting a tough year ahead, but market conditions should improve as oil prices begin to normalize,” Yang Ming Marine chairman Frank Lu (盧峰海) told reporters at a news conference.
“Earnings are likely to improve in the second half as commodity prices rebound and boost transport demand from producing nations,” Lu said.
Despite the downturn, he said that the company’s operations in Asia have remained profitable, backed by resilient demand among ASEAN countries, whereas conditions are much less favorable in long-haul lines to the US and Europe.
“Although recovery appears to be intact in the US market and Europe has stepped up quantitative easing measures to spur economic growth, we are not anticipating immediate improvement there,” he said.
Working with Yang Ming Marine, Regional Container Lines has reached a sizeable scale in Asia in recent years by growing its business in Thailand, using Singapore as an operational and transshipment center, Lu said.
“We have a long relationship through providing feeder services to complement Yang Ming Marine’s long-haul operations,” Regional Container Lines managing director and president Summate Tanthuwanit said.
Amid growing macroeconomic uncertainties across the globe, in particular softening demand in China, the marine transport sector has been weighed down by plummeting cargo volumes, suppressed shipping rates and oversupply, the companies said.
The Baltic Dry Index — which tracks the costs of transporting dry commodities including iron ore, cement, grain and fertilizer — last month dropped to 298, the lowest in the index’s three-decade history.
Yang Ming Marine reported that sales in the first two months of this year dropped 16.52 percent annually to NT$18.51 billion (US$563.13 million).
The company primarily provides domestic and overseas marine shipment services, warehouse, pier, tug boat, barge, container freight station and terminal operations, maintenance and repairs, among other businesses.
It operates various ship routes, including Asia-North America, North America-South America, Asia-Northwest Europe, Asia-Mediterranean, Asia-Black Sea and Intra-Asia.
Shares in Yang Ming yesterday closed up by 0.22 percent at NT$9.02, slower than the TAIEX’s 0.48 percent increase, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS