COSCO Ranking in World Top Shipping Companies

As released from the 40th anniversary celebration of China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO) that the vicissitude of 40 years and endeavor of several generations have so far enabled the COSCO to rank among the world top shipping companies.

On the 27th of April, 1961, the clarion siren of our first ship, named "Guanghua" ("Bright China"), sent by order to take back the overseas Chinese in Indonesia, marked the establishment of COSCO, the first international ocean shipping company that China had ever seen. At the very beginning, COSCO had only 4 ships with a carrying capacity of 22,600 tons. However, 40 years later, COSCO has already turned into a large trans-national enterprise group owning more than 540 modern ocean freighters with a total carrying capacity of 23 million tons and engaging in dozen and more trades. Up to now, COSCO has successfully developed from a traditional ocean shipping company into a modern enterprise with international cargo shipping as its business mainstay. Moreover, this year saw it approved by the State Council as an authorized unit for investment.

Facing the increasingly fierce competition in the international shipping market, COSCO, having established an enormous global business network, continue to go on tapping for the world market. So far, COSCO has extended its shipping routes to over 1,200 ports of more than 160 countries and regions in the world, with its annual freight volume exceeding 0.15 billion tons. It has set up more than 400 representative offices abroad staffed with over 5,000 workers, of whom 4,600 are foreign employee, thus forming a transnational operational network. With Beijing situated in the center it spread out in different directions covering Hong Kong, Germany, the USA, Japan and Singapore as regional bases. A sub-company of COSCO in Shenzhen is capable of producing 350,000 TEU containers annually, accounting for 55 percent of the total output of China and 45 percent of the world's total.



By PD Online staff member Deng Gang


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