A government-funded initiative is aiming to grow the shipowning sector in a part of China known more for its powerful export-focused industry than for shipping entrepreneurship.
The Equator Fund Management-run Shenzhen Shipping Fund aims to bolster shipowning in the Pearl River Delta. That is where Beijing means to integrate as a single exporting and maritime-focused megalopolis, integrating the historically separate economy of Hong Kong with those of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and neighbouring cities.
TradeWinds recently reported on the Shenzhen municipal government's planned launch of the CNY 10bn ($1.54bn) fund.
But in China's industrially oriented south, small shipowning entrepreneurs in need of fostering are not as thick on the ground as in the trading centres like Fuzhou and Ningbo on the southeast coast.
"I don't think there are a lot of independent Shenzhen bulker owners," said one sale-and-purchase broker who targets Chinese dry bulk buyers of international tonnage.
Chinese owners may be roughly divided among state-owned enterprises (SOEs); industrially linked semi-captive fleets serving big importers such as power companies; fleets that represent side investments of the earnings of non-shipping enterprises who want to diversify their exposure; and independent shipowning ventures. There is considerable overlap among categories.
Shipowners in Shenzhen crowd towards the front of that scale, including in the SOE group Shenzhen Ocean Shipping — a branch of Cosco — and in the house fleet category, power company-controlled Shenzhen Energy Transport with a fleet of six panamaxes.
One of the region's quickest growing owners is Dongguan Haichang Shipping.
Based in another Pearl River Delta city but with a branch in Shenzhen, Dongguan Haichang is linked to a coal trader and terminal owner with a cargo base in the tens of millions of tonnes per year. Over three years, it has grown a fleet of 13 to 21, all panamax and post-panamax ships, including 10 under the Chinese-flag and qualified for coastal trading.
Shenzhen Ocean, Shenzhen Energy Transport and the Shenzhen branch of Dongguan Haichang all took part in recent meetings with the new Equator-run fund.
Equator chairman Vincent Xu, who also goes by Xu Chun, told TradeWinds recently that the new fund will not focus exclusively on regional projects.
“It is important for us not to think only of the Pearl River Delta but of the shipping industry in all of China,” he said.
Another Equator official said that the company has good relations with the Shenzhen Maritime Association's shipowners.
"I think we will help the local owners grow, not only through lease financing but through other types of cooperation," he said.
