Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Major Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. plans to further diversify its business portfolio to stabilize the company's performance, which is now highly susceptible to market fluctuations, according to President and CEO Jotaro Tamura.

"We would like to expand our business scope by generating synergies in fields highly compatible with the shipping industry," Tamura said, citing the chemical industry as an example, during an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun.

The following is excerpted from the interview.

The Yomiuri Shimbun: What are the challenges your company faces?

Jotaro Tamura: Moving forward, I expect trade will become more complex, driven by the intricate interplay of geopolitical factors. We handle a high volume of shipments to and from both China and the United States, so trade conflicts between the two nations will inevitably affect our business.

Our ability to successfully navigate this increasingly complex equation and take our global management to the next level will be put to the test. Shipping remains our core focus, but we must also work on developing other operations.

Yomiuri: Which field do you particularly want to put effort into?

Tamura: The shipping industry can't escape from the fact that it is highly sensitive to market conditions. Our business performance fluctuates in tandem with these dynamics, so it is difficult to say our performance is stable. To break this cycle, we plan to diversify our business portfolio to improve stability while remaining committed to refining and leveraging our strengths.

For example, we have tankers designed to transport chemicals, but they were only used for shipping. Now, we intend to leverage the strengths of a shipping company to expand our business scope into both the upstream and downstream segments of the supply chain (of chemicals).

Last year, we acquired a company that stores chemicals at port facilities. As a result, our business is no longer limited to just transporting chemicals. We can now seamlessly manage shipping alongside our storage services and other activities, adding value to our operations. We would like to expand our business scope by generating synergies in fields highly compatible with the shipping industry.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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