MOL to stay in the box business

Mitsui OSK Line has scotched reports that it was planning to quit the container business.
The Japanese carrier said remarks by MOL chief financial officer K Yonetani to the Reuters agency were “misinterpreted”.
In a statement today, MOL said Yonetani expected overcapacity in the container market to continue for several years, and that the container business had been hardest hit "due to unprofitable rates and sagging volumes".
But he explained that "only diversified shipping lines which provide a wide range of services including bulkers and containers will be able to survive" and that although MOL's spinning off its container shipping division was one option, the benefit of doing so at this time would be small due to the industry's huge overcapacity.
The MOL statement said that with the current downturn in the global economy and over supply of capacity in the shipping market, the carrier was continually reviewing “every alternative to improve its profitability”.
However, MOL said it considered that the option of a "spin off" was not a choice under the current circumstances.