The Korean shipping industry has officially suggested Hanjin Shipping merge with Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) to prevent nation’s shipping industry from the co-destruction.
According to local media, the industry recommends the merger of the two companies for the first time. As placing Hanjin Shipping into court-led restructuring will co-destruct the nation’s shipping businesses, the company should stabilize the business and merge with HMM later.
The KSA and the Federation of Korea Maritime Industries, which consists of 48 organizations in the maritime sector, plan to officially submit such a recommendation to the government and financial businesses on the 29th of August.
KSA has highlighted that Hanjin Shipping should be normalized first and merge with HMM later in order to reduce costs and improve competitiveness. It is noteworthy that 2,300 employees working in the the port and trade industries in Busan maylose their jobs.
Furthermore, industry watchers expect that Hanjin Shipping’s filing for court receivership will have an adverse effect on HMM.
Using 98 container ships, Hanjin Shipping has delivered liner shipping services with more than 400 annual visits through 74 routes connecting 90 ports around the world. As of last July, the company ranked fifth in terms of market share of waterways in Americas with 7.4 percent, following Maersk and Evergreen.
Moreover, it ranked seventh in terms of market share of container vessels, which generally represents rankings of the shipping competitiveness, with 2.95 percent.
