NEPTUNE Orient Lines Ltd., the owner of Southeast Asia’s biggest container shipping company, rose the most in almost two months in Singapore trading after it reported the biggest profit in two years.

The shares gained 8.8 percent to SUS$5.55 as of 10:44 a.m. in Singapore.

The stock has more than doubled this year, making it the third-best performer on the Straits Times Index.

Manufacturers in Asia are exporting more toys, textile and computers to Europe and the US, allowing shipping lines to charge more. Rates to move cargo to Europe from Asia in the three months to June 30 increased by the fastest pace in more than three years.

The stock may extend gains “given the company’s likely improving profitability in 2008,” analysts Chin Lim and Sophie Loh at Morgan Stanley said in a note Thursday. They raised the stock to an “overweight” with a target price of SUS$6.30.

Neptune Orient said Wednesday net income jumped 50 percent in the three months ended September 21 to US$191.4 million, the biggest profit since the third quarter of 2005.

Sales increased 15 percent to US$2.03 billion.

Shipping lines charged about US$1,658 to move a 20-foot container to Europe from Asia in the second quarter, 18 percent more than a year earlier, according to Containerisation International, which tracks the industry.

That’s the biggest increase since the first quarter of 2004.

Trade between Asia and Europe is expected to increase 20 percent this year and in 2008 led by growing demand in Russia and the U.K., according to the 16-member Far Eastern Freight Conference.

The group’s members account for about 70 percent of container-shipping capacity on the trade route.

Members of the New World Alliance, including Neptune Orient’s APL Ltd. unit, Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., will almost double capacity on services between Asia and Europe in January to meet growing trade demand, the group said in a statement Thursday.

The shipping lines will operate eight containers vessels that can each carry between 8,100 and 8,600 20-foot standard containers on its South China Express service with port calls in Ningbo, Shanghai, Hamburg and Rotterdam. ---Bloomberg

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THE government has started its ‘shipyard-for-rent’ program in Subic Bay, aiming at small- and medium-scale shipyard operators who cannot afford to buy the necessary equipment to build larger vessels.

CEBU CITY—Three people were confirmed dead while six, including an infant, are still missing when a passenger outrigger sank in the waters between Cebu and Camotes islands Wednesday evening.

INDUSTRY groups Aircargo Forwarders of the Philippines Inc. (AFPI) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said they will return to the negotiating table to settle the use of the Neutral Airway Bill (NAB).

NEPTUNE Orient Lines Ltd., the owner of Southeast Asia’s biggest container shipping company, rose the most in almost two months in Singapore trading after it reported the biggest profit in two years.