Alibaba News

A number of container ships are anchored in the Red Sea and others have turned off tracking systems as traders adjust routes and prices in response to maritime attacks by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on the world's main East-West trade route.Attacks in recent days on ships in the major Red Sea shipping route have raised the spectre of another bout of disruption to international commerce following the upheaval of the COVID pandemic, and prompted a U.S.-led international force to patrol waters near Yemen.The Red Sea is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal…

Maritime clean technology company Silverstream Technologies announced it has signed an agreement in principle (AIP) with China Classification Society (CCS), the primary class society in China that serves the shipping, offshore and related industrial industries.This is Silverstream’s first agreement of this nature with a classification society. The AIP confirms that CCS has reviewed and verified the Silverstream System’s design drawings and provides an independent class verification of its generic system design.

Collapsing ocean shipping rates are not all good news for U.S. retailers, who paid as much as $20,000 to move a container of goods during the worst pandemic disruptions, as they now are bracing for delays due to plummeting demand.Carriers like MSC and Maersk are trying to prop up prices by cancelling voyages and that could spark a new round of cargo delays as containers get bumped from one ship to the next, experts said ahead of a major U.S. ocean shipping conference in Long Beach…

Alibaba Group Holdings and Israeli shipping group Zim have entered a strategic cooperation agreement for the direct purchase of sea freight, which will improve logistic services to merchants selling on Alibaba, Zim said on Monday.Zim said it will provide sea freight and services through a direct interface with the e-commerce giant’s logistics platform.The companies have been cooperating since earlier this year, the shipper said in a statement.Zim is 32% owned by Kenon Holdings.(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Tova Cohen)

COSCO SHIPPING has signed a cooperation agreement with e-commerce company Alibaba and its FinTech affiliate Ant Financial to digitalize the shipping supply chain.The Chinese firms will research and promote the deployment of shipping blockchain in China, working to facilitate the connection of shipping, ports, logistics and finance based on the technology, and to realize data connectivity through cross chain cooperation to build a platform for systematic cooperation between the upstream and downstream industrial chains.

A delegation from Hamburg was in China from 14 to 18 May, visiting companies in Zhengzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Organized by Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM) in cooperation with the Hamburg Representative Office in Shanghai, the delegation’s tour was led by Axel Mattern, HHM’s Joint CEO, and Mathias Schulz, its Head of Market Development Asia. The delegation included representatives of TCO Transcargo, Rostock Port, Trelleborgs Hamn, Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) and Hamburg Invest. The focus was on discussions with leading import and export companies, along with Chinese logistics providers for sea and rail services. In addition, the delegation was extremely impressed by developments on the expansion of Chinese infrastructure.

Shipping struggles to recover from worst crisis in 30 years; market for new ships remains weak. Sales of second-hand ships reached a 10-year high on cautious optimism that one of the shipping industry's worst ever downturns is nearing an end. An increase in cargo demand has helped revive confidence this year in a sector that is starting to emerge from a 10-year slump fueled by owners splurging on thousands of new ships. "Second-hand purchases go up when optimism is thriving. 2017 has certainly been a year that has lent optimism a hand," said Peter Sand, chief analyst at shipping industry group Bimco. Some 1,630 ships worth $19 billion were sold in the year up to Dec. 15, the highest since 2007 when sales hit a record 1,894, according to shipping services firm Clarkson.

Maritime Reporter & Engineering News caught up with Frank Coles, the ubiquitous leader of Transas, fresh from his company’s user’s conference in Malta. In typical candor, Coles paints his picture of maritime and shipping’s future. With a captive audience of more than 400 clients in scenic Malta for several days earlier this year, one might be surprised when Frank Coles admits that the meeting was not all about Transas. “I wanted something completely different. I didn’t want to talk about Transas, I wanted to talk about the industry and what we can learn from aviation.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. said it has partnered with online and mobile commerce company Alibaba Group for its entry into the Chinese cruise shipping market. Alibaba operates the world’s largest online and mobile marketplaces, offering a wide range of products and services to its nearly half billion monthly active users. In China, people live, work and play on Alibaba, buying local and overseas products, and enjoying its entertainment and lifestyle services – travel, food delivery and social networking.

Maersk is set to unveil the thinking behind its recent tie-ups with IBM and China’s Alibaba when the firm’s Chief Digital Officer, Ibrahim Gokcen, takes the stage at this year’s Nor-Shipping. The maritime event week, taking place across a series of venues in Oslo and Lillestrøm from May 30 to June 2, has confirmed Gokcen as the latest high-level speaker for a program of discussion that will analyze, and help plot, the future course of the maritime industry. Gokcen’s appearance at Nor-Shipping comes at a time when Maersk…

Frank Coles, Transas CEO, delivered the keynote speech at the Transas Global Conference in Malta. We are faced with the perfect storm in the next few years. Many will conclude it is all the fault of President Trump, but in fact it is actually nothing to do with him. If anything he is going to enable the industry to think smarter because he is also bringing change. The perfect storm is the one confronting the maritime industry. It is one which will disrupt all elements of the shipping industry – is technology-driven and in some cases is also self-inflicted.

Two container shipping lines, France's CMA CGM and Israel's Zim, have signed up with Alibaba to allow customers to book space on their vessels through the Chinese e-commerce giant, in a bid to boost sales as the sector battles a severe downturn. Container lines, facing their worst ever downturn due to a glut of ships and weaker demand, are pursuing several measures such as vessel-sharing arrangements or mergers and acquisitions to ride out the current slump. A growing number of logistics firms are going online to buoy their business. In December, Maersk - the world's largest container shipping line and a unit of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk - started offering online booking services to Chinese shippers on Alibaba's OneTouch website.

Maersk, the world's largest container shipping line, has teamed up with Alibaba to allow customers to reserve space on its vessels through the Chinese company, illustrating growing cooperation between e-commerce and logistics firms. Maersk, a unit of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk, began offering the service to Chinese shippers on Alibaba's OneTouch booking website on Dec. 22, a spokeswoman for the shipping line said on Wednesday. Shippers traditionally go through freight forwarders to book space for goods on container vessels, but lines such as Maersk are allowing cargo owners to book directly via the internet. For their part, e-commerce companies are increasingly venturing into logistics activities to try to gain better control over their supply chain networks.

In an interview with Patrik Berglund, the Xeneta CEO says that the introduction of the "commodity" status for the container would benefit both shippers and carriers. Q- In today’s world of Amazon, Alibaba and E-commerce, have container rates (meaning 20-40’dry box) reached ’commodity’ status? Not exactly. There is a major difference between ‘cheap’ and being a ‘commodity.’ Clearly the current rates are very low, and in fact threatening the financial viability of 4-6 ocean carriers, but business cycles, as set by supply and demand, are part of the global economic cycle.

Amazon.com Inc is aggressively expanding its logistics operations in China as part of a broader effort to control the rising cost of shipping billions of packages. Its plans in China, outlined in filings there, include handling cargo and customs for goods headed to ports in Japan, Europe and the United States. Some analysts say the move could help position Amazon to offer shipping services to other companies, eventually competing with the likes of United Parcel Service Inc and DHL Worldwide Express BV. That would mirror the strategy of Amazon's cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, which is now the company's fastest growing unit. The service was launched to serve Amazon's own retail operations but now hosts data for other companies.