Overseas demand to aid Nippon Yusen

TOKYO: Nippon Yusen KK, Japan's largest shipping line, will be increasingly reliant on shipping iron ore and coking coal to China as it expands its fleet as domestic growth stagnates.

China may account for half of the iron ore and coking coal the company ships by 2015, up from 20 percent now, according to Kazuo Ogasawara, general manager of the capesize bulker group at the Tokyo-based company. Japan may account for less than 40 percent, compared with 60 percent now, Ogasawara said.

"We'll just have to expand our commercial zone in China and India where demand is growing," Ogasawara said in a Feb 22 interview in Tokyo.