Research On The Financing Structure Of Domestic Shipping Enterprises And Its Influencing Factors

The shipping industry is a pillar industry for international trade.With the proposal of China's “The Belt and Road” initiative,the importance of the shipping industry in China's economic development is self-evident.As we all know,over the past decade,the global economy has witnessed a gradual recovery from the financial crisis.In particular,China's economy has now resumed its normal development.However,the shipping industry,cyclical in its nature,has experienced abnormal growth during this period without keeping pace with the overall economic recovery,and struggled to go back on track for a long time.In the few years when the BDI(Baltic Dry Index)rose slowly in fluctuation,the level of recovery and profitability of China's shipping companies was weaker than that of foreign shipping companies.It can be found that the high asset-liability ratio of shipping companies not only makes enterprises face higher operational risks but restricts their long-term development.This paper analyzes the overall development trend of China's shipping industry at current stage with the focus on the status quo of domestic shipping enterprises' financing structure,and then puts forward some problems in corporate financing structure.In order to provide some reference and experience for domestic shipping companies in financing structure decision-making and adjustment,this paper elaborates the financing structure of domestic shipping companies and the influence factors of their dynamic adjustment from both static and dynamic perspectives.In view of the previous theoretical analysis of the factors affecting the financing structure of shipping companies and the dynamic adjustment,the author selects the financial reports(from 2008 to 2017)of 40 listed shipping companies in China as the sample,and conducts an empirical analysis on the factors of their static financing structures with a fixed-effect model.Dynamically,based on the partial adjustment model,this paper establishes a dynamic adjustment model of the financing structure of shipping enterprises which is estimated and tested by the system GMM.The study found that the main factors affecting the company's asset-liability ratio,debt financing rate and equity financing rate include the their profitability,debt-paying ability,operation capacity,as well as the changes in both BDI and new shipbuilding prices at the macro level which have varied influence on the.The research on the dynamic adjustment of financing structure of domestic shipping companies shows that profitability,operation capacity,debt-paying ability,equity concentration,growth,GDP,BDI and VLCC all have a significant impact on the dynamic adjustment behavior of corporate financing structure.Besides,the speed of the dynamic adjustment of asset-liability ratio of China's shipping enterprises is 0.299 suggesting a slow adjustment of financing structure among China's listed shipping companies.Based on what have been found in this study,this paper puts forward several suggestions for the decision-making and optimization of shipping companies' financing structure.For shipping companies,they should rationally choose financing ways,establish dynamic optimization mechanism for financing structure,and enhance financing structure optimization awareness and their risk control capabilities.Nationally,although shipping industry is now in its downturn,the state should give great support and vigorously cultivate professional talents in shipping finance so as to promote the long-term growth of China's shipping companies against the backdrop of “The Belt and Road”initiative.