Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) yesterday said it holds a conservative outlook for this year as the US-China trade dispute has slowed the growth of Asian exports to the US, but added that it would improve its edge by using 58 new vessels in the Southeast Asian market.
The shipping company saw its revenue for the first five months jump 24 percent from a year earlier to NT$77.1 billion (US$2.48 billion), as its freight volume to the US and Southeast Asia has expanded, Evergreen Marine chairman Anchor Chang (張正鏞) told reporters after a shareholder’s meeting in Taoyuan.
The shipping arm of Evergreen Group (長榮集團) said it previously forecast that the US-China trade dispute would ease last month and was surprised that US President Donald Trump added to tariff hikes.
“We thought that we would have to battle against headwinds, but it turned out that we secured a lot of long-term contracts, as our clients trusted us and aimed to secure space amid uncertainty stemming from the trade dispute,” Chang said.
Apart from Dragon Boat Festival week, Evergreen Marine has since April sent vessels to the US with almost all of their containers full, he said.
The company’s freight volume to ASEAN members has grown stably this year, after annual increases of 15 percent in the past two years, Chang said.
With the trade dispute increasing the rate that companies are moving production from China to ASEAN, Evergreen Marine would find growth momentum with Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and the Philippines, he said.
Evergreen Marine has purchased 58 vessels of 1,900 to 2,800 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), as most ports in the region can only accommodate smaller vessels, Chang said.
So far, the company has taken delivery of 18 2,800 TEU vessels, and would take delivery of another 40 by 2022, he said, adding that it would decommission aged vessels when the new ones are received.
Evergreen Marine’s total freight volume would increase in line with global market growth, or an average of 4 to 5 percent within the next five years, he said.
The trade dispute has affected shipping businesses worldwide, with the growth of Asian exports to the US sliding to only 1 percent so far this year, Evergreen Marine president Eric Hsieh (謝惠全) said, adding that imports to China have also dropped.
With higher standards for fuels with lower sulfur content to take effect in January next year, the company has taken a lead over its peers by purchasing 130 scrubbers for its vessels, Chang said.
Evergreen shares yesterday shed 0.4 percent to close at NT$12.45, while the group’s airline arm, EVA Airways (長榮航空), saw its share price plunge 3.85 percent to NT$15, with investors pessimistic over strike action launched by the airline’s union, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS