According to a Bloomberg report, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. will double its overseas banking staff that works on financing for ship construction, as Japan's biggest arranger of such deals tries to take advantage of surging demand for vessels. China's appetite for iron ore will boost demand for vessels with cargo capacity of more than 100,000 tons by 44 percent between last year and 2010, according to a report last month by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., owner of the world's largest merchant fleet. Corporate lending at Japan's biggest banks contracted 0.7 percent from a year earlier in September, the sixth straight month of declines, a Bank of Japan report showed last month. Sumitomo Mitsui lent $2.7b for ship construction in 2006, according to the U.S. magazine Marine Money.
