China Merchants Energy Shipping Co. Ltd., a major Chinese international oil tanker operator, said Monday its first-quarter net profit slumped 56.5 percent year on year as the global financial crisis bit into the shipping market.

In the first quarter, the company raked in 196 million yuan (US$28.7 million) of net profit, bringing primary earnings per share to 0.06 yuan, according to the company's statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange where it is listed.

"Net profit in the first half is likely to see a big fall, because the global shipping market for oil and bulk cargo is expected to stay in downturn in the second quarter," company chairman Fu Yuning said in the statement.

The shipping giant said its operating revenues in the first quarter plunged 40 percent year on year to 499 million yuan.

In a separate statement, the carrier said operating revenues surged 32.6 percent to 3.2 billion yuan last year from 2007 as a result of strong shipping demand in the first half.

Net profit totaled 1.28 billion yuan in 2008, 45.5 percent up from 2007, said the company.

Surging foreign trade fueled ocean shipping from 2003 to the first half of 2008 as China's economy recorded double-digit annual growth, but the growth slowed down in the second half as a result of the financial crisis, the statement said.

China's exports fell for the fifth month in a row to US$90.29 billion in March, down 17.1 percent from a year earlier, after seeing the worst-in-a-decade decline of 25.7 percent year on year in February.

In March, total foreign trade value plummeted 20.9 percent year on year to US$162.02 billion.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2009)