China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) will raise the operational capacity of twenty-foot equivalent units (or TEUs) to over 2 million by the end of 2018 in efforts to scramble more market share from its three European rivals on East-West and South-North routes.

Wan Min, general manager of China COSCO Shipping, said Chinese shipping companies mainly operate container shipping services on Asia-Africa and China-Southeast shipping lines, the competition will therefore focus on major shipping lines in particular Asia-Europe and Asia-America routes.

The Chinese company owns 1.58 million TEUs, ranking fourth out of the world's container shipping operators.

"Denmark's Maersk Line, Switzerland's Mediterranean Shipping Co SA and French shipper CMA CGM SA, the world's top three container ship operators currently hold around 40 percent of container cargo market share in the world, the share for Chinese companies in major shipping lines remain relatively small," said Wan.

Wan said the goal of reaching 2 million TEUs can help COSCO possess similar operational capacity to compete with each one of the three European shipping companies.