Hanjin Shipping Co. will try to crack the East African sea routes this year to turn the company’ s operation to end in  black ink, President Kim Young-min said recently.

 The CEO at a media briefing on March 17, said this year looks good for shipping as shipping charges for containers may be raised, especially, in the U.S. and East European routes where container cargoes have began to increase, unlike the first quarter last year.

 Hanjin Shipping posted 10.17 trillion won in revenue last year, exceeding for the first time 10 trillion won mark in its history, but ended the year in loss of 143.6  billion won with the loss of 218.4 billion won in the first quarter last year was too much for the company to recover.

 The company posted profits in the second and third quarters in the year last year, cutting the loss to minimum compared to its rival shipping firms in the world.

 President Kim said he is not sure whether the company will be able to make profit this year, but he will do every thing to avoid the deficit in operation by employing all kinds of management strategies. He said the slow timing strategy to save operational expenses will be employed first in order to cut the fuel costs, which usually take up around 20 percent of total operational expenses annually.

 The slow timing strategy would also make more rooms for other ships to operate and reduce the number of idle ships. He also said the company will explore new markets in East Africa for cargoes with many African countries seeing their economies grow. Hanjin already assigned a number of its vessels to serve shipping routes in West Africa last year and will start to assign its ships to serve the sea lanes in East Africa from March 26 linking Mundra, India, Karachi, Pakistan,  Jebel Alley, the United Arab Emirates, Mombasa, Kenya, and Dar Es Salam, Tanzania,

 President Kim went on to say that the shipping business is on the way to recovery a little by little, but its too early to order new ships as there are still excess number of ships in operation. He thinks that the prices of ships are so low that some new ship orders have been issued, but it is not yet a full recovery of the shipping business.

Hanjin is a business enterprise with the transportation sector accounting for more than 70 percent of its business. Since November 1945, Hanjin has steadily expanded its business horizon during past 65 years and has become one of the world’s leading transportation group, offering its services in the air and at sea as well as on land. On land, aviation and marine transportation is provided as its main line of business and we have also become a provider of information and communication on transportation. Hanjin led the nation’s efforts for internationalization and globalization in worldwide marketing, information and personnel and business management. It has also carried out public offering of its shares and specialization of its businesses while it was paying close and equal attention to the public welfare area such as medical care and education. 

Following the founder Cho Choong Hoon’s idea that Hanjin would contribute to the development of society and mankind through transportation, the group has been growing in all areas of service under the company motto: ideas and faith, sincerity and practice, and responsibility and service. Through its aviation, marine and land transportation, information and communication service of the Hanjin Group will try and create a means to overcome the barriers of time and space as much as possible. 

In order to help create affluence for all mankind, Hanjin is establishing a network that would bring all parts of the world closer. As an integrated transportation group, Hanjin serves travelers, carries materials and provides information and means of communications. Hanjin will continue to build its worldwide network of travel service, material transportation and communication to establish Hanjin’s name firmly in the world and in our daily life.