Qingdao: Qingdao is one of China’s most pleasant coastal cities with its rugged coastline, sandy beaches and famous brewery. It is also home to a number of small to medium shipowners. Collectively they have a vocal local association with Wang Junyao as the secretary-general of the Qingdao Shipowners’ Association.
Speaking to Maritime CEO, Wang urged fellow shipowners everywhere to work together more rather than cutting each other’s profits to bits by being overly competitive.
“No matter whether the industry is good or bad, profit will always be the core target of shipping and related industry players”, says Wang.
The shipping industry should not be a competitive market, but an open one, the industry players should not fight against each other, but find a cooperative and win-win way to work and develop together, he says.
Wang highlights the near ended spat between China and Brazilian miner, Vale, as a classic case in point. A Valemax called at Qingdao recently in the wake of the Brazilian firm agreeing with Cosco to seek mutual cooperation in shipping.
Any shipping association is tasked with getting its members’ viewpoint across to the authorities and the Qingdao collective is not alone in China in urging for greater help from Beijing.
“We have urged the authorities to provide more favourable policies to shipping lines and intervene in unhealthy competition,” says Wang.
Currently, the association is in talks with the Shanghai Shipping Exchange to launch a Qingdao Shipping Index and a shipping finance platform. More details should be made clear by the end of this year. [05/11/14]
