IN BRIEF (Page 15)

SOEs profit climbs 65.8%

The combined profit of China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) climbed 65.8 percent year on year in the first five months of 2010 to 749.29 billion yuan, the Ministry of Finance said.

Business revenue totaled 11.5 trillion yuan in the period, up 44.5 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement.

The profit growth rate in May was 1.2 percentage points lower than in April. The oil and coal industries' profits increased markedly in the January to May period, the statement added.

Air China buys Boeing planes

Air China, China's leading carrier listed in Hong Kong, said last Friday that it would pay $1. 3 98 billion to buy 20 Boeing 737-800 planes.

In a statement filed to the HK stock exchange, the carrier said the cost would be "payable by cash in installments" and it would " take delivery of the Boeing Aircraft in stages from 2013 to 2015".

The Beijing-based airlines said the transaction would expand its fleet capacity with an increase of around 5 percent based on available ton kilometers of Air China by the end of 2009.

By the end of September last year, Air China owned 256 passenger planes, mostly Boeing and Airbus. It operated 250 routes covering 32 countries and regions worldwide. It currently has another 130 or so planes in several orders.

Increase in overseas ops

China National Petroleum Corp targets a "noticeable increase" in its overseas operations in the next decade, the Beijing-based company said in a statement posted on its website yesterday.

The State-owned company will focus on its core oil and gas business in the next five years, it said.

Additional surcharge

China Shipping Container Lines Co, the nation's second-biggest cargo-box carrier, plans to impose additional surcharges on transpacific shipments next month because of a global shortage of containers.

The shipping line will levy an "emergency equipment surcharge" of $400 per forty-foot box from July 1, Deputy General Manger Zhao Hongzhou said in Shanghai after a shareholders meeting. The company introduced a peak-season surcharge of the same amount on Asia-Americas routes from June 1, he said.

"The demand recovery has led to a shortage of boxes," Zhao said. The surcharge will help the company address the shortfall before shipments are disrupted, he said.

The company's "profitability is improving as demand recovers," said Zhao. The shipping line had a loss of 6.49 billion yuan last year and a first-quarter loss of 192.7 million yuan.

China Daily -Agencies

(China Daily 06/29/2010 page15)