FRENCH ship owner and operator Compagnie Maritime d'Affretement (CMA) has set up a company in Shanghai to oversee its growing activities on the mainland. Over the years, the company has set up liaison offices in several major trading and industrial centres in China. Headed by John Wang, CMA China's areas of responsibility include sales and marketing, container logistics, documentation, business administration, and finance. The Shanghai office is linked to the CMA central computer system in Marseilles, which co-ordinates and control all cargo bookings and container movements. CMA liaison offices are located in Guangzhou, Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao Shanghai and Nanjing. Mainland agents also have been appointed to support CMA's direct representation in each of these key locations, a company spokesman said. Sinotrans represents the line in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Dalian; Seitrans and Sinotrans jointly represent CMA is Qingdao; and China Ocean Shipping Agency (Penavico) has been appointed in Dalian. In Nanjing, Jiansu Ocean Shipping Co (Cosco) and Jiansu Marine International Freight and Forwarding Co have been appointed jointly by CMA, as they control different types of cargo from a range of ports on the Jiansu River. These river ports include Nanjing, Zhanjiagang, Zhenjiang, Jiangjin and Nantong. Four staff are located at CMA's Nanjing office. The Shanghai office recently increased staff numbers to eight to cope with the growing volume of container traffic being handled there. ''CMA's four new offices, our expansion in Shanghai and Nanjing, and related agency appointments, are the result of careful planning and thorough research in China of the market's requirements, undertaken over the past 18 months,'' a CMA spokesman said. ''Our locally based management and staff liaise closely with each official Chinese state agency, and are successfully developing a wide range of new cargo opportunities.'' Dry containers (20 ft and 40 ft units) are available at each Chinese port served by CMA, he said. Inland transport and movement logistics for container positioning, including full-container-load deliveries and collection, is under the control of the individual CMA liaison offices established in each province or region. The ports of Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Nanjing, Qingdao and the Jiansu River ports are connected by feeder ship relays to Hong Kong, while the more northerly ports of Dalian and Tianjin are served by feeders to Pusan. All feeder services used by CMA are provided by Chinese state-controlled operators, which have a near-monopoly on routes between China, Hong Kong and Pusan. Feeder-ship links to these ports range from a daily frequency service (Whampoa barge link to Hong Kong), to a minimum of twice-weekly sailings serving both Hong Kong and Pusan.