China Shipping Container to buy 8 ships for $560 mln

SHANGHAI, June 11 (Reuters) - China Shipping Container Lines Co (601866.SS) said on Wednesday it plans to order eight container vessels with a total price of $559.84 million.

The ships, with capacity of 4,250 twenty-foot-equivalent units each, will be built by a subsidiary of China's biggest shipbuilder, China State Shipbuiding Corp (CSSC), the company said in a statement.

China Shipping will make payment in five instalments with the initial payment of $14 million due next week, it said.

The new container ships, to be delivered between October 2011 and June 2012, will service long-haul routes to Europe, North America and the Mediterranean, it added.

CSSC is the parent of China State Shipbuilding Co (600150.SS). (Reporting by Fang Yan; Editing by Edmund Klamann)