Taipei  - Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp, expecting recovery of the global economy by 2012, plans to order 100 container ships and boost its competitiveness, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Economic Daily News cited Evergreen Marine owner Chang Jung-fa as saying that Evergreen plans to order the new ships to expand its fleet and to replace
30-year-old ships.

Evergreen, Taiwan's largest and the world's fourth-largest container shipping operator, has 178 container vessels, out of which 100 are self-owned and the rest rented.

Chang expects the global slump to bottom out in the latter half of 2011 and recovery to begin in 2012.

As steel prices are expected to fall in 2011, Evergreen plans to place orders with Japanese and South Korean shipyards, starting about 2012. The total cost of the 100 ships will be 5.5 billion US dollars.

Under Evergreen's ship-building plan, 40 per cent of the new ships will be 5,500 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) ships, 30 per cent will be 8,000 TEU, and the rest will be 2,800-3,900 TEUS, the Economic Daily News reported. (dpa)