COSCO sails into profit as delisting iceberg looms

China COSCO Holdings, the country's biggest shipping company, is expecting to report a full-year profit for 2013, after two years of heavy losses, indicating the company could avoid delisting from the Shanghai Stock Exchange this year, the company said in an announcement on Thursday.

Thanks to a number of asset sales to China COSCO's parent company to reduce poorly performing core business, the return of profitability could encourage the company to optimize more resources to boost its dry bulk shipping sector. It will reveal its 2013 full-year earning details in March.

Affected by declining global shipping activities in the past three years, China COSCO has reported 20 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) in losses between 2011 and 2012.

China COSCO announced plans last month to order nine new cargo vessels in its first major purchase in five years, as it is keen to upgrade its fleet by taking advantage of China's new subsidy policy to encourage the nation's shipping companies to reduce the number of aged ships, and replace them with new vessels with relatively higher technical content.