SIMIC

While long-haul container shipping has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe, intra-Asia volumes have been holding up, said the carrier, as reported by UK's Container News.

An SITC official said the company is optimistic about the intra-Asia market with growing volumes out of Vietnam and the Belt and Road initiative resulting in increasing cargo flows. "We therefore want to have more owned ships to reduce charter costs," said the official.

During this year SITC has taken delivery of four vessels, the 1,032 TEU HF Spirit (ex-Hyundai Harmony), 2,702 TEU SITC Ulsan (ex-Munk Strait) and 1,043 TEU HF Wealth (ex-AS-Leona). The ships are said to have been bought for around US$12 million in total.

SITC now owns 69 ships of 100,219 TEU and with chartered capacity of 27,874 TEU.

In June, SITC launched a Vietnam service connecting Tianjin with Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh and Quy Nhon ports and Malaysia's Bintulu port. The following month, SITC began an Indonesia service linking China's Wenzhou port with major Indonesian ports. Earlier this month, SITC and Xiamen port started the "Silk Road Shipping" express service to expedite imports from Cambodia to China.

Besides the second-hand ship acquisitions, SITC has taken delivery of five of nine newbuildings (ranging between 2,400 TEU and 2,700 TEU) from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, with the latest vessel, SITC Nansha, christened on August 12.

In 2019, SITC purchased five pre-owned vessels, the 1,032 TEU SITC Danang, 1,049 TEU HF Fortune, 1,049 TEU HF Lucky, 1,700 TEU Sunshine Bandama and 1,700 TEU Stellar Windsor. Sunshine Bandama is understood to be currently chartered to Samudera Shipping Line.

The prefix "HF" in the ship names is understood to denote "Haifeng", SITC's Chinese name.