Qingdao: In typically bullish form Captain Wei Jiafu, president and ceo of COSCO Group opened up the World Shipping Summit this morning with an upbeat speech where he implored fellow owners to scrap more ships and stop cut throat competition to ensure a return to the 'golden' times for shipping.
Wei noted the event was taking place in Qingdao at an auspicious time, the Baltic Dry Index having risen for the past two consecutive days to reach 3,748 points.
His speech - entitled "We need a rational market" - touched upon the importance of globalization to shipping. Wei showed, via a barrage of graphs, that stock indices, oil prices, consumer indices and manufacturing indices the world over were on a gradual upswing in the past quarter.
'It is still a bit early to say if the global economy is back,' he said, 'but a V-shaped recovery looks possible.'
He warned, however, that any trade spat, such as the recent US tariffs of Chinese tyres, would harm shipping's recovery, an issue he spoken about a lot lately, most recently at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.
'Protectionism will actually delay the cause of the global economic and trade recovery. It is not the way out,' he said.
While noting the cut in shipping capacity this year had been a success, Wei remained concerned about the 'excessive' orders still to deliver and he appealed to fellow owners to scrap more ships as well as invest in greener ship designs.
The COSCO boss was also adamant that, 'The centre of world shipping will move to Asia.'
Finally, he urged shipping companies to stop fighting against each other, saying, 'It just hurts everyone.' Instead, he pushed for 'rational development'
Concluding, Wei said, 'We must stick at the principles of cooperation, reform, innovation, mutual trust and win-win.'
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