COSCO SHIPPING Holdings recently responded to the impact of the conflict in the Middle East and said that it was not considering resuming traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
On April 9, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings held its 2025 annual results briefing. The company said that the capacity of the container shipping market involving Middle East routes accounts for a small proportion of the total global capacity, and the impact of capacity spillover caused by the situation in the region is generally limited; For the company itself, the operating income of related routes accounts for a small proportion of total revenue, and the impact on the revenue side is relatively limited at present.
The company previously issued a notice to customers on March 4, suspending new booking business on related routes in the Middle East. In order to meet the freight demand of customers for this flow, the company updated its services in the Middle East on the 25th of the same month, and resumed the new booking business (ordinary containers) from the Far East to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman and other countries in the Middle East through multimodal transshipment.
Among them, local goods from Abu Dhabi and Jebel Ali can be transported via bonded land bridges via either the ports of Khorfekan or Fujairah. Cargo from the upper Gulf countries is transported to Abu Dhabi CSP via a bonded land bridge, connecting to its own feeder network with Abu Dhabi CSP as a hub, and transshipment to other parts of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq. Omani cargo is transferred from Mumbai Newport in India to Sohar, Oman.
COSCO SHIPPING Holdings said that the overall market demand is gradually recovering, but the arrangement of the above-mentioned new booking business and the actual transportation in view of the uncertainty of the situation in the Middle East may change, and the company is not currently considering resuming the Strait of Hormuz traffic.
The company said that in the future, it will take the port of Qiankai in Peru, the port of Piraeus in Greece, and the port of Abu Dhabi as strategic hubs to accelerate the laying of a global trunk and branch route network, and simultaneously accelerate the capacity building of the matching collection and distribution system. At the same time, we will focus on improving the service level of key hubs such as Peru's Qiankai Port, Piraeus Terminal, and Abu Dhabi Terminal, improve the layout of the feeder network, and enhance the route aggregation effect.
At present, COSCO SHIPPING Holdings operates a total of 308 international routes (including international branch lines), 62 China coastal routes and 85 Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River branch lines, with a total of 654 ports in about 146 countries and regions around the world. By the end of 2025, the company's dual-brand self-operated container fleet will reach 590 ships, with a capacity of about 3.6 million TEU, and the total capacity of self-owned and light chartered ships will account for 75%.