China’s iron grip on container manufacturing is on the verge of being prised loose by two Asian peers, one of them a neighbour of the Asian behemoth, and coming soonafter Maersk’s sweet deal last year when it sold its box-making business to China International Marine Containers (CIMC).
CIMC’s purchase of Maersk Container Industry’s research and development (R&D) facility in Tinglev, Denmark, netted the line a cool $987.3 million, described at the time as the most lucrative transaction in the carrier’s 94-year history.
It also handed China a monopoly* in the world’s dry box business, with 96% of all new container manufacturing shifted to CIMC after Maersk offloaded its R&D facility.
In the reefer industry, China is said to have outright control of all cold-chain container manufacturing.
However, news this morning is that Vietnamese steelmaker, Hoa Phat Group, is working on readying a container plant in Vung Tau province.
Earmarked to start output by the end of the year, the plant will have capacity for 500 000 TEUs.
Still in Vietnam, but with two South Korean firms at the helm, another container plant is being constructed in the port city of Haiphong, east of Hanoi.
It is not known when Seojin Systems and Ace Engineering’s plant will commence with output.
In December, China’s logistical interests also received another push towards global freight dominance when it was announced that it had consolidated several entities into one new parastatal – China Logistics Group.
* Read this for context: https://tinyurl.com/2p85zane
