Sino-Global Shipping America, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SINO), a leading, non-state-owned provider of shipping agency services operating primarily in China, announced new cost-cutting measures in response to the weakened global shipping industry. Specifically, some of the key measures include a 33% reduction in annualized office rent expense and reduction of staff from 75 as of September 2008 to 52 as of February 2009, resulting in an expected 27% reduction in annualized personnel expenses
"We are operating in an industry that has been particularly hard-hit by the global financial crisis," said Mr. Cao Lei, Sino-Global's chief executive officer. "While we have been successful in continuing to improve our revenues, our costs in recent quarters have significantly impacted our bottom line. By reducing such costs with these cost-cutting measures and expanding our services into relatively low-cost sources of revenue, we believe we can improve our operating efficiency going forward."
The company noted that it is considering additional cost-cutting measures to continue to improve competitiveness in the future.