COSCO confident of returning to profitability in 2013

BEIJING -- China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO), the country's largest shipping firm which suffered heavy losses in the past two years, is confident of returning to profitability in 2013, its president Ma Zehua said.

"The market is very concerned of COSCO's risk of being delisted from the stock market and we are under great pressure," Ma said Sunday in Beijing where he will attend the annual session of the National People's Congress as a national lawmaker.

"We will take effective measures," he said, but did not detail on the measures.

COSCO said on January 25 that it expected to report a large loss for 2012, marking the second year of losses in a row and an imminent downgrading of the status of its yuan-denominated A shares by the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

In 2011, COSCO lost 10.4 billion yuan ($1.66 billion).

If COSCO records another loss in 2013, it has risk of being delisted from the stock market.