China's COSCO Shipping Holdings Co Ltd made a loss last year of 9.9 billion yuan ($1.44 billion), the company reported on Thursday, due to both persistently weak freight rates and restructuring costs. Freight shipping firms have been hit hard by a prolonged downturn in rates caused by overcapacity and a slowdown in global trade.
COSCO, the world's fourth-largest container shipping line, became a new company last year, born out of the merger of two major domestic shipping firms, making year-on-year comparisons difficult. Since then it has been restructuring, selling some units at a loss and focusing on container shipping. Revenue came in at 71.2 billion yuan.