Beijing: The government is preoccupied with saving larger shipyards with many smaller ones in jeaopardy which could well present an opportunity for some, says Mao Yonghong, president of Hubei Baibuting Group. His firm has acquired and is reorganizing six private shipyards and is hunting for more, he told local business website Caijing Wang. The six yards under his control will soon have an annual production capacity of 6m tons with an annual output of 60bn yuan.
Mao predicted, affected by the economic crisis, the weaker shipyards' financial conditions are getting worse. Mao thought the national stimulus policies are biased in favour of large state-owned shipbuilding enterprises but not private and small ones, so there will be a merger climax impending for the shipbuilding industry in the second half of this year. Baibuting Group will keep looking for opportunities to acquire small and medium-sized domestic shipyards.
Baiguting Group started in real estate and it became the biggest real estate development enterprise in Wuhan. It entered the shipping industry in the last threee years, starting by buying a yard in Shandong. [12/03/09]
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