China COSCO, the country's largest dry bulk shipping line, said its 2014 net profit would be more than 50 percent higher than the previous year after it made headway in increasing revenue. The company, the flagship unit of state-owned shipping conglomerate China Ocean Shipping (Group) Corporation, in 2013 reported a net profit of 235.5 million yuan ($37.70 million). It said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange on Thursday that while the supply-demand imbalance in the global shipping industry had not improved, the company had taken measures to improve its revenue, improving its results. COSCO provided no details on the measures taken. In a separate statement, China Shipping Development Co Ltd, which mainly ships crude oil and commodities such as coal, said it would post a profit of about 300 million yuan in 2014, after seeing a loss of 2.3 billion yuan in the previous year. China Shipping Development said the jump to profit was spurred on by cost reductions as well as a turnaround in international oil transportation markets. Crude prices LCOc1 CLc1 have fallen more than 50 percent since mid-June, boosting buyer demand and driving up rates for oil tankers. The tanker sector has been one of the few bright spots in global shipping, which has been dogged by an oversupply of vessels that has weighed on charter rates, particularly in the dry bulk and container segments. (Reuters)