Nikkei Asia reported that BYD COMPANY (01211.HK)  -4.800 (-1.852%)    Short selling $390.59M; Ratio 25.648%   plans to increase its fleet of automobile roll-on/roll-off ships (RORO ships) to 8 in the next two years to expand its export capacity. Wang Chuanfu, founder and chairman of BYD, said last month that the carmaker intends to buy 7 more RORO ships in the next two years to alleviate the shortage of export capacity for automobiles.

COMEC (00317.HK)  -0.060 (-0.573%)    Short selling $166.96K; Ratio 2.046%   , a unit of China State Shipbuilding Corp, is also planning to build 2 RORO ships with a capacity of 7,000 cars. Construction of the two vessels has already begun in Guangzhou, and BYD is hoping that owning its own fleet will cut transport costs as car shipping costs continue to rise.

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China exported 4.9 million vehicles last year, hiking 58% YoY and overtaking Japan as the world's biggest car exporter. However, the growth in China's auto export capacity has not kept pace with its export expansion. According to UK-based Clarksons Research, there are about 40 RORO ships under the management of Chinese shipping companies. The combined capacity is only about 110,000 vehicles, far less than Japan's total capacity of 1.6 million, Norway's 930,000, and South Korea's 490,000 vehicles.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) expected China's car exports to increase 12% YoY to 5.5 million cars this year.

(HK stocks quote is delayed for at least 15 mins.Short Selling Data as at 2025-01-08 16:25.)

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