Hapag-Lloyd AG, Germany’s top container shipping line, and five Asian carriers will form a new vessel-sharing alliance to take on bigger rivals amid a glut in capacity that’s depressed freight rates, reports Bloomberg.
The partners will include Japan’s Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd, Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd, Nippon Yusen KK, South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co, and Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp, the Hamburg-based company said in a statement.
Called ‘The Alliance,’ it will control 18 per cent of the world’s container shipping fleet with more than 620 vessels and a combined capacity of 3.5m standard twenty-foot containers, or TEU, according to the statement.
Global shipping lines are regrouping to compete more effectively against market leaders AP Moeller-Maersk A/S and Mediterranean Shipping Co that are allied under the 2M partnership, which controls 28 per cent of the market, according to Alphaliner.
They also have to contend with Chinese operators as the government consolidated operations of two major state-controlled groups, China Ocean Shipping Group and China Shipping Group, Bloomberg said.
Nippon Yusen, Mitsui OSK and Hapag-Lloyd are all currently part of the G6 Alliance, which will cease to exist next year, while Hanjin Shipping, Kawasaki Kisen and Yang Ming belong to the CKHYE alliance that also includes Cosco Container Lines Co and Evergreen Marine Corp Taiwan Ltd.
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