SIMIC

Throughput of the Greater China region increased 3.4 per cent to 26,069,126, accounting for 77.9 per cent of the group's total throughput.

For the nine months ending September 30, throughput of the Greater China region decreased 1.6 per cent to 70,106,667 TEU, and accounted for 77 per cent of total throughput.

The Bohai Rim region increased 5.3 per cent to 11,198,475 TEU, accounting for 33.5 per cent of total throughput.

But Yangtze River Delta region volume fell 26.1 per cent to 3,906,628 TEU, accounting for 11.7 per cent of total throughput.

"The drop was mainly due to completion of the disposal of Nanjing Longtan Terminal, Yangzhou Yuanyang Terminal and Zhangjiagang Terminal," said the Cosco statement.

"Cosco Shipping Ports has made improvement in both throughput and earnings in the third quarter. This year, the group continues to actively implement "Lean Operations" strategy and adopt a series of measures, such as control cost and improve efficiency," said the statement.

"In terms of cost control, domestic terminals have shown preliminary achievements. As the utilisation rate of overseas newly-developed terminals continues to increase and the epidemic gradually starts to be under control, overseas terminals are expected to achieve improvement in reducing cost per TEU.

"As at the end of September, the group has cash and bank deposits of $1.22 billion. It is expected that there will be sufficient cash to support the dividend policy of the company in the year 2020," the statement said.