Alibaba Group Holding, China’s largest e-commerce company, plans to join hands with partners to build a logistics network across China that can support CNY10 trillion worth of transactions a year within the next decade. It will take the lead in a CNY100 billion investment in the network by teaming up with industry players, banks and the biggest express delivery companies, including Chinese retailer Yintai Group and private conglomerate Fosun Group, Alibaba said. China’s logistics industry has been criticized for its inability to satisfy the great demand of e-commerce delivery. Alibaba aims to make deliveries between any two places in China within 24 hours once the network – China Smart Logistic Network – is finished. “It’s like building a road so that cars can run on it,” said Yang Lei, public relations director of Alibaba. He added that Alibaba will not do the deliveries itself, just like it doesn’t sell things itself but instead builds the infrastructure for others to sell. Alibaba and its partners will set up warehouses across China and build a data system that tracks trade and delivery information of suppliers, sellers and buyers to improve the efficiency and quality of deliveries, Yang said. A new company will be set up, and Jack Ma, Alibaba’s Chairman, will act as the Chairman, while Shen Guojun, Chairman of Yintai Group, will be CEO. Xu Yong, Chief Consultant with the express and logistics website cecss.com, said that Alibaba’s promise to deliver packages in 24 hours will be hard to fulfill. A single logistics network may also prevent Alibaba’s e-commerce rivals, such as Jingdong Mall, from joining, Xu added. Jingdong Mall, the second-biggest business-to-customer website in China, has established six logistics centers, covering more than 300 cities across China. The company is building up a warehouse and logistics system in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Last year, China’s express delivery industry had CNY106 billion in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 40%, according to the State Post Bureau. The number of packages delivered last year increased 55% from a year earlier, and Ma Junsheng, Director General of the State Post Bureau, expected the figure to increase by 40% this year, hitting 8 billion, the China Daily reports.

Burgeoning growth in specialist ship management services is leading Hong Kong-based Wallem Group to open its first ship management and broking operation in Singapore. Captain Deepak Honawar, Director of Wallem Shipmanagement, said launching in Singapore would provide more space for the company to grow its Hong Kong ship management business. “Ships call more frequently at Singapore than Hong Kong” to refuel and change crews, he said. As a result, it was likely some of the ships currently managed from Hong Kong, along with technical staff, will be transferred to the Singapore operation. “This will make room for expansion in Hong Kong,” Honawar said. Wallem manages more than 400 ships globally including tankers, dry cargo bulk carriers, container ships and vehicle carriers on behalf of shipowners. Honawar said the company saw a net increase in its managed fleet of about 40 ships last year. The move into Singapore comes six months after Wallem formed a ship management joint venture with Chinese shipowner Nanjing Tanker in Singapore. Honawar said the partnership, NW Shipmanagement, had 16 tankers in its fleet and the tie-up would give Wallem the opportunity to recruit more Chinese officers with tanker experience. He said NW Shipmanagement was the latest of several joint ventures Wallem had with shipowners including Cosco in Qingdao, and Fesco and ID Maritime in Hong Kong. Honawar will become Managing Director of Wallem Singapore, moving to the city state in February ready for Wallem Shipmanagement (Singapore) and Wallem Commercial Services to launch in April, the South China Morning Post reports.

Chinese shipping group Cosco is considering investing €1 billion to acquire a 60% stake in Greece’s largest port at Piraeus, which is on the government’s privatizations list. Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said Cosco had “shown an interest” in expanding its investment in Piraeus, without giving details. Cosco has already made a major investment in Piraeus port, which is 74% state-owned. Cosco spent €4.3 billion on a 35-year management lease for the No 2 and No 3 piers, which it has been operating since June 2010. In 2011, about 1.7 million containers passed through Piraeus, the country’s busiest port and a gateway to Eastern Europe. Cosco also announced investment plans to improve port facilities, build a new pier and almost triple the volume of cargo the port can handle. The company pays €100 million  a year to the Greek government to maintain its presence at the port. The Greek port has generated moderate profits for the group compared with its financial losses over the last two years. During the first three quarters of 2012, China Cosco Holdings Co, the group’s Shanghai-listed unit, suffered a loss of CNY6.4 billion, the largest loss among the more than 2,000 listed companies. Two consecutive years of losses will put the company on the special-treatment list of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which would limit the daily trading movement of its stock to 5%, compared with the standard 10%. Three years of losses could result in it being removed from the exchange. Investment in the port could strengthen Cosco’s market position. “As global trade is increasingly relying on China’s growing imports, it is very important for shipping companies such as Cosco to strengthen their global presence,” said Han Yichao, Analyst with Changjiang Securities Co.

Huanghua port in Hebei province has reported steady annual increases in cargo and container volumes. According to the latest data from the port, it handled a total of 130 million metric tons of cargo in 2012, an increase of 12.4% on 2011. Coal throughput jumped by 5% from a year earlier to 105 million tons, accounting for 81% of its total cargo flow. The figures represent a sound performance compared with the industry’s national average growth, analysts said. During the first 11 months of 2012, Chinese ports handled cargo volume totaling 8.9 billion tons, up 6.9% compared with the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Transport, but 7 percentage points lower than the year before. Huanghua port saw two 400,000-container capacity terminals start operating at the beginning of 2012. They handled a total of 102,000 containers for the whole year – a record for new terminals in China. By contrast, container throughput processed by all Chinese ports in 2012 jumped 8% from a year earlier to 146 million containers, a growth rate about 4 percentage points lower than 2011. Officials at Huanghua attributed the solid performance to its key geological location, which can substantially reduce logistics costs for energy companies, steel makers and coal exporters based in China’s coal-rich central provinces. The port has also implemented favorable policies, including subsidies for shipping companies that chose to ship their cargo through the port. Since October 1, 2012, it has also exempted trucks carrying containers to and from the port from paying expressway tolls in the province. The port is currently building a CNY3.76 billion, 58.8-km-long, 200,000-tonnage deep-water channel, which should be in use by the end of this year. Cangzhou Mayor Jiao Yanlong said the local government wants to build Huanghua into a key national port by 2020, the China Daily reports.

Some executives from shipping companies that carry containers full of China-made products mainly to Europe and North America say they see little evidence of a strong rebound in seaborne exports. Stephen Ng, Director of trade for Orient Overseas Container Line, said the company wasn’t seeing “any particular upsurge” in container volumes on its Asia-to-Europe or trans-Pacific services. Parent Orient Overseas International said its container-shipping trans-Pacific services volume fell 6.8% in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier. Volume on Asia-to-Europe services grew 2.8% compared with the year-earlier quarter. Consulting firm Alphaliner expects modest demand growth this year, forecasting a 1% rise on Asia-Europe services and a 1.6% trans-Pacific rise. Last year, Asia-to-Europe volumes declined 5% while trans-Pacific volumes fell 0.4%, according to Alphaliner estimates. The vast majority of containers on both routes carry exports from China. “We see a rally in shipping-company shares but the industry has not fundamentally improved,” says Bonnie Chan, Analyst with Macquarie Securities, citing a continued weak trade outlook as well as overcapacity and low rates within the industry. Despite a recent rise in China’s exports, analysts say the latest figures are influenced by exceptional factors such as backlogs caused by port strikes in the U.S. Others in the industry said they see some growth. Tim Smith, Maersk Line’s North Asia Chief Executive, said the company was experiencing “a rather unexpected strong pickup in exports” from China, especially to Europe, a rise he said looks set to continue up to the Lunar New Year in mid-February. Global supply of container-shipping capacity is expected to grow up to 9% in 2013 while demand growth is expected to grow between 4% and 6%, Alphaliner said, the Wall Street Journal reports.