Factories of the world leading container producers, including CIMC, Singamas, Maersk, jointly announced a two-month-stop of container production in China so as to ease the output overplus, according to the China Container Industry Association.

The association said that the decision has just been passed by the majority of China's container producers at a recent national conference in Shanghai.

The move will start before China's Spring Festival which falls on January 28, 2006 and last for about two months.

In addition, a number of new production programs will also be postponed in China to control the output, said the association.

Among the participants are the world's largest container producer--the CIMC (China International Marine Container Group Co., Ltd), the second largest Singapore's Singamas Container Holding Limited, the privately-owned CXIC Group Containers Company of China, and the Danmark-based Maersk Container Industri AS (MCI), as well as the ROK-based Jindao Group.

Statistics show that China will produce 4.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of international containers this year, while the global demand from the Chinese market is only 2.4 million TEUs.

The association forecasts that the gap between production and demand in China's container industry will be enlarged in the coming years, with the annual output to hit 5.8 million TEUs in 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2005)