Rags to riches tale for Zim

FROM shipping illegal immigrants in a flotilla of rusty hulks to operating one of the world's 10 largest container fleets and reporting a pre-tax profit of US$38 million is the kind of rags to riches tale you might associate with a Hong Kong shipping magnate.

In fact, it is the story of Israel's Zim shipping company, which started in June 1945 with a cargo of Jewish refugees from war-ravaged Europe on their way to British-run Palestine.

From that humble start, grew a national carrier which operated 80 vessels last year, 38 of them owned and the rest chartered as needed. Its worldwide network of shipping lines takes it to 250 ports of call.

Although shipping to the home ports is still a significant part of Zim's business, 67 per cent of its total revenue derives from freight carried between other countries.

Zim Israel Navigation Co. has been in Hong Kong since 1956, when the territory was the first in the region to have a Zim office.

Representatives and agencies are now in all the principal cities of Asia, networked from Hong Kong.