Evergreen Marine Corporation, one of Taiwan's leading shippers, recently changed the registry of 13 container ships to Singapore from Panama, with the former offering tax-free incentive to attract foreign shippers to carry its flag.
Chang Yung-fa, chairman of Evergreen Group, said his company will build 100-200 container ships in 2010 and 2011 despite the uncertain global economy, afterwards the group will have a fleet of over 200 container ships, the Taiwan Economic News reported.
Evergreen said the cost for building container ships is too high, it costs US$15,000 to build per TEU, while the impact of the global financial tsunami has stagnated orders for many shipbuilders.
The shipper said its 13 ships carrying Panamanian flag will fully shift to Singaporean registry in a half year.
Chang likened the current global financial crisis to the 1930s depression, believing the shipping sector globally will worsen in the second half and next year, predicting the global economy won't turn better until 2012. |
