U-Ming Marine Transport is partnering a Chinese state-owned company in a groundbreaking venture by a Taiwanese shipowner into domestic shipping across the strait.
Company spokesman Stephen Chen told TradeWinds that Taipei-listed U-Ming will be the junior partner in ITG U Ming (Xiamen), a 51:49 dry bulk shipping joint venture with trading conglomerate Xiamen ITG Group.
The chairman and executive officers of the joint venture will all come from the mainland side and the company will be based in the city of Xiamen in the south-eastern Chinese province of Fujian.
Xiamen ITG already has dry bulk shipping operations, albeit much smaller than those of U-Ming, whose fleet of 40 ships ranges from small cement carriers to capesize bulkers and VLCCs.
International ambitions
The tie-up is not meant to own ships itself but plans to charter in Chinese-flag tonnage from handysize to panamax, initially for coastal and inland trading with a focus on southern China, but with a view to developing international business in the future.
U-Ming already has a foothold in Xiamen through a crew recruitment subsidiary there.
Chen said the new venture is approaching clients in the power, mining and steel-making sectors.
"Entering the mainland China market is a big step for a Taiwanese company, and this joint venture is just beginning," he said. "The goal for U-Ming is to build relationships with Chinese counterparties and to gain more knowledge of the mainland market."
Xiamen ITG is a Shanghai-listed public vehicle of Xiamen municipal government-owned Xiamen ITG Holding, also known as Xiamen Guomao. The company is a conglomerate with operations in real estate investments, automobile distribution, finance and commodities trading.
Its subsidiary, Xiamen ITG Shipping, is listed by reference sources with one bulker and two offshore support vessel newbuildings, but Chen told TradeWinds that Xiamen ITG also has two panamaxes on order at Japanese shipyards.
U-Ming is also part of a conglomerate, the Far Eastern Group, whose interests include energy, cement, construction, real estate and department stores.
Meanwhile, Chen said the recent sale of an ageing post-panamax bulker is unrelated to the joint venture, even though the buyer is reportedly a Xiamen-based company. Brokers reported the CSBC-built, 80,200-dwt Xin Yu Long (ex-Cemtex Prudence, built 2000) as sold for $8m to an otherwise unknown company called Xiamen Da Tong Xin Lu Yang.
"It was a third-party sale," Chen said. "It was not sold to the joint venture and the new owner has no relation to U-Ming."
