ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands, May 16 (Xinhua) -- COSCO SHIPPING Specialized, one of the core members of China's COSCO SHIPPING Corporation, on Thursday opened its European regional head office in Rotterdam, Europe's largest port.
"The start up of this company is one of our method to provide integral total solutions to specialized shipping and related industries," said Guo Jing, vice-CEO of COSCO SHIPPING EUROPE.
"COSCO SHIPPING has contributed for a long time to the sustainable development of Rotterdam, Netherlands and the entire Europe, by serving the infrastructure companies, manufacturers, import/export trading companies and EPC companies and projects," he said.
"We are now giving birth to this new company, not only serving Chinese companies or Asian interests, but putting more focus and emphasis on European clients," he said. "This new company is now investing more in the development of Trans-Atlantic voyages and Intra-Europe sailings."
Rotterdam "has witnessed the glorious history of cooperation between Europe and China and is leading the trend of global shipping development," said Wu Mingliang, executive vice-president of COSCO SHIPPING Specialized.
With its specialized shipping fleet, the largest in the world, the group now "puts the most advanced tonnages and service team into the new company as a platform, not only to catch the development opportunities of European and Atlantic markets, but also to provide more service to our customers," he said.
COSCO SHIPPING Specialized operates more than a hundred vessels, including multi-purpose and heavy lift vessels, semi-submersible vessels, pure car carriers, logs carriers as well as asphalt carriers. It provides a wide variety of solutions for the transportation of various non-containerized cargo at sea.
Arno Bonte, vice mayor of Rotterdam, welcomed the global leading company in his city. "Rotterdam always welcomes companies, especially when it is a company like COSCO which aims at growing not only now, but also for the future," he said.
He stressed that the Port of Rotterdam is moving to become the most sustainable and smart port in the world, an aim connecting to the aim of the Chinese company because "we know COSCO is a company sustainable in itself, has sustainable goals and also your customers are moving this sustainable direction".
Rotterdam is building more wind farms in the North Sea, making offshore wind a growing market and COSCO has strong capacity in the shipping of windmills, he said.
COSCO SHIPPING Specialized choosing Rotterdam to locate its European head office is a new proof of the strong bond between the city and China, the vice mayor added.
Rotterdam and Shanghai celebrate 40 years of city sisterhood this year.
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