INTERVIEW-China's COSCO sees shipping recovering in Q2: CEO

BOAO, China, April 17 (Reuters) - Business is looking up for China's COSCO Group, the world's largest dry bulk ship operator, as a recovering Chinese economy helps boost trade and international freight prices, its chief executive said on Friday.

"Even a slight tick-up in the macro economy will surely enhance trade flows, which will benefit the shipping industry," Wei Jiafu told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Boao Forum.

COSCO Group is the parent company of China's largest shipping conglomerate, China Cosco (1919.HK), Chinese shipbuilder Cosco Corp (COSC.SI) and COSCO Pacific (1199.HK), the world's fifth largest port operator.

While China's annual economic growth slowed to its weakest pace on record in the first quarter, analysts said sequential growth in the quarter almost doubled from the previous three months. The rate of decline in Chinese exports also slowed in March from February. [nBJB000598]

The global shipping industry, battered by its worst crisis in decades, has seen dry cargo rates dive more than 90 percent after a five-year boom.

"The situation for the first quarter was definitely not good as trade volume slumped. But it is improving impressively in the second quarter as shipping and leasing costs are trending up," Wei said.

The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, the Baltic Dry Index .BADI, which tracks rates to ship dry commodities, has recovered strongly to about 1,680 from lows below 800 in the fourth quarter.

Wei said that the freight rate for each of his company's standard containers heading to Europe rose by about $150 in April.

(Reporting by Eadie Chen and Kirby Chien; editing by John Stonestreet)

(eadie.chen@reuters.com; +8610 6627 1268; Reuters Messaging: eadie.chen.reuters.com@reuters.net))

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