China COSCO Holdings managed to narrows its loss by 45% year on year (y/y) to CNY1 billion (USD161.2 million) in the first quarter of 2015 because of decreased losses incurred by scrapping of old tonnage.
In the first three months of 2015, China COSCO scrapped six container ships and 16 bulk carriers, incurring losses of CNY265.3 million, down 67% y/y.
Excluding one-off items, its losses fell 31% y/y, a stock filing of China COSCO said on 30 April.
However, the company reported a rise in its revenue by 4% y/y to CNY14.8 billion.
For the first quarter that ended 31 March 2015, the company’s operating box ship fleet expanded 6% y/y to 891,496 teu, or 183 box ships. Its orderbook for new container ships totalled 117,960 teu for 10 vessels.
China COSCO’s bulker tonnage shrank 10% y/y to 21.1 million dwt for 221 vessels as of the end of March 2015. It has 40 bulk carriers with a combined 3.5 million dwt capacity on order.
In 2013, the Chinese government rolled out subsidy policies to encourage Chinese shipowners to scrap China-flagged old vessels. The subsidies will be doubled if the shipowners order new tonnage at Chinese shipyards to match the depleted tonnage.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
