China ports investor looks for overseas growth

Hong Kong - China Merchants Group, the investor in ports that moves about a third of the nation's containers, will seek more overseas projects as local trade growth slows from this year's "stellar" pace.

The company is looking at building ports and investing in facilities in "newly emerging markets," Chairman Fu Yuning said on Wednesday in an interview in Shenzhen. He didn't elaborate on which countries the group was targeting.

Chinese ports' traffic growth will likely cool in 2011, Fu said, after the end of the global recession caused a surge in exports of toys, furniture and auto-parts this year. The company has forecast a jump of more than 20 percent in 2010 volumes, compared with a decline of 13 percent a year earlier.