CHINA Shipping Development Co has signed a US$212 million deal with two Shanghai-based firms to build four ships to expand its cargo business, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday.

Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing Heavy Industry and China Shipbuilding Trading Co will build four 180,000-deadweight-ton bulk cargo ships, expected to be finished in November and December 2012, for China Shipping. China Shipping will pay 20 percent of the shipbuilding deal through its own capital and the remainder through bank loans.