COSCO facing ‘challenges’ with international investments amid US trade pressures

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HONG KONG (Reuters) -COSCO Shipping Ports is facing “challenges” with its international investments amid pressures from the U.S. trade war, its managing director said in Hong Kong on Thursday.

Wu Yu told an earnings conference that while there were challenges from the United States, the state-owned global shipping and ports conglomerate was “very focused on development opportunities in emerging and regional markets, as well as in some key hubs”.

The company said that even though China’s exports to the U.S. had dropped, those to emerging markets had increased, so it was seeking acquisition opportunities in Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East.

COSCO said challenges it faced included a “volatile geopolitical environment” and, when expanding abroad, a tightening regulatory environment against foreign investment in many countries. High bidding prices from other port competitors were another headwind.

Wu declined to comment, however, when asked about reports that COSCO might become an investor in CK Hutchison’s sale of its global ports assets.

An initial plan by CK Hutchison to sell its $22.8 billion ports business to a group led by the U.S. firm BlackRock and Italian Gianluigi Aponte’s family-run shipping firm MSC faced heavy criticism from Beijing.

CK Hutchison has said it is in talks with a Chinese “major strategic investor”, without providing a name, to join the consortium. Sources have said the investor is COSCO – one of the world’s dominant, vertically integrated marine transportation firms.

The sale plan covered 43 ports in 23 countries, including two near the Panama Canal, where U.S. President Donald Trump has called for a reduction in Chinese influence.

(Reporting by James Pomfret and Clare Jim in Hong Kong. Editing by Toby Chopra and Mark Potter)