COSCO, which stands for China Ocean Shipping Company, is a Chinese government-owned company. It is a massive and important company in China, as well as one of the country's most recognizable brands. In terms of its own industry, COSCO is one of the world's largest container shipping companies, and its containers can be seen and recognized all over the world.

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HISTORY of COSCO

Predecessors:

COSCO

China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, headquartered in Beijing, was a Chinese state-owned multinational transportation conglomerate founded in 1961. It was China's largest dry bulk carrier and one of the world's largest dry bulk shipping companies. Furthermore, the Group is China's largest liner carrier. [4] COSCO Container Lines, its container shipping subsidiary, was one of the world's top ten container carriers in terms of fleet capacity. In 2012, COSCO was one of China's top 15 brands.

China Shipping

China Shipping (Group) Company was established in 1997 and was based in Shanghai. The company was a state-owned Chinese multinational transportation conglomerate. China Shipping Container Lines, China Shipping's container shipping subsidiary, operated 156 container vessels with a total capacity of 656,000 TEUs as of May 2014.  In 2014, China Shipping Container Lines' container ship CSCL Globe was the largest in the world.   Other subsidiaries of China Shipping operated oil tankers, tramps, passenger ships, and car carriers.

In January 2016, the Chinese State Council approved the merger of COSCO and China Shipping, forming COSCO Shipping. The merger, which took place during a period of downturn in the marine transportation industry, aimed to achieve economies of scale.

COSCO has been actively expanding overseas. Shortly after, the subsidiary COSCO Shipping Holdings partnered with Shanghai International Port Group to acquire the majority stake of Orient Overseas (International).The deal was completed in August 2018. Orient Overseas (International) is the parent company of OOCL. This will make it one of the world's largest container shipping company with a fleet of over 400 vessels.

By the end of August 2021, COSCO SHIPPING Lines, the Company owned and operated 498 container vessels with a total capacity of 2.9 million TEUs (COSCO SHIPPING Holdings owned and operated 515 container vessels with a total capacity of 3.0 million TEUs, ranking the 4th place in the world in terms of shipping capacity). COSCO SHIPPING Lines operates 397 international and domestic shipping routes, consisting of 264 international services (including international feeder services), 53 domestic services, 80 Yangtze River and Pearl River shipping services, having anchors in 334 ports covering 101 countries and regions worldwide.

COSCO Subsidiaries

COSCO contains several listed companies and has more than 300 subsidiaries locally and abroad, providing services in freight forwarding, ship building, ship repair, terminal operation, container manufacturing, trade, financing, real estate, and information technology.

China COSCO Holdings

COSCO Pacific

COSCO International 

COSCO Shipping Co., Ltd.

COSCO Corporation (Singapore)

Cosco SHIPPING Lines (Japan)

As of 2000, COSCO also owned 30% stake of China Cargo Airlines