11-16-2006, 06:02 AM
<b>Free Flow: Shipping firms count on India to fill empty containers </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->HONG KONG: Looking back 150 years, one secret of the British empire's success was the full use of ships going between China and India.
<b>Steamers carried opium from India into China and tea back into China. The trade contributed to the so-called opium wars, which helped bring Hong Kong into existence.</b>
Today, the big problem for any company handling container trade with China is its trade imbalance. Because China exports so much more than it imports, containers leaving China for any destination are always full, but when the containers return, they are often empty.
But shippers are hopeful of a change as they watch the pace of industrialization in India and growing trade connections between it and China.
 Several major shipping companies are starting new links between China and India, or are expanding the services they already offer on these routes.
<b>"The trade has really started to grow in the last four to five years, and it grows very, very rapidly," </b>said Hans Meurs, a shipping expert and vice president for Asia at CMA CGM, the French container-shipping line.
Meurs's research concludes that total container trade between China and India grew 50 percent in 2005 compared with 2004, and that it will grow by 65 percent in 2006.
Still, <b>Meurs estimates that for every eight full containers exported from China, only one full container is imported into the country</b>.
Shippers like CMA CGM are looking at India to help bring the numbers closer to parity. And Emirates Shipping Lines, a new player based in Hong Kong, is promoting a China-India express service to complement its links between India and the Middle East.
<b>"China and India are both mass producing countries</b>," said Jamshed Safdar, senior vice president for marketing at Emirates Shipping Line. "<b>However we see a lot of finished goods moving from China to India and a lot of raw material and chemicals and even some finished goods from India to China."</b>
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<b>Steamers carried opium from India into China and tea back into China. The trade contributed to the so-called opium wars, which helped bring Hong Kong into existence.</b>
Today, the big problem for any company handling container trade with China is its trade imbalance. Because China exports so much more than it imports, containers leaving China for any destination are always full, but when the containers return, they are often empty.
But shippers are hopeful of a change as they watch the pace of industrialization in India and growing trade connections between it and China.
 Several major shipping companies are starting new links between China and India, or are expanding the services they already offer on these routes.
<b>"The trade has really started to grow in the last four to five years, and it grows very, very rapidly," </b>said Hans Meurs, a shipping expert and vice president for Asia at CMA CGM, the French container-shipping line.
Meurs's research concludes that total container trade between China and India grew 50 percent in 2005 compared with 2004, and that it will grow by 65 percent in 2006.
Still, <b>Meurs estimates that for every eight full containers exported from China, only one full container is imported into the country</b>.
Shippers like CMA CGM are looking at India to help bring the numbers closer to parity. And Emirates Shipping Lines, a new player based in Hong Kong, is promoting a China-India express service to complement its links between India and the Middle East.
<b>"China and India are both mass producing countries</b>," said Jamshed Safdar, senior vice president for marketing at Emirates Shipping Line. "<b>However we see a lot of finished goods moving from China to India and a lot of raw material and chemicals and even some finished goods from India to China."</b>
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