BEIJING (Bloomberg) — Cosco Shipping Company, a unit of China's biggest shipping company, said first-half profit surged by 141 per cent from a year earlier.

Net income rose to 853 million yuan ($124 million), or 1.3 yuan per share, from 355 million yuan, or 0.54 yuan per share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange yesterday. The figures are unaudited.

Sales rose 41.2 percent to 3.5 billion yuan, the statement said without saying whether the results were compiled under Chinese or international accounting standards.