Taipei - Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corporation, expecting recovery of the global economy by 2012, plans to order 100 container ships and boost its competitiveness, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Economic Daily News cited Evergreen Marine owner Chang Jung-fa as saying that Evergreen plans to order the new ships to expand its fleet and to replace 30-year-old ships.

Evergreen, Taiwan's largest and the world's fourth-largest container shipping operator, has 186 container vessels, half of which are self-owned and the rest rented.

Chang expects the global slump to bottom out in the latter half of 2011 and recovery to begin in 2012.

As steel prices are expected to fall in 2011, Evergreen plans to place orders with Japanese and South Korean shipyards, starting about 2012.

The Evergreen Marine spokesman refused to comment on the news report.

"We do not want to confirm or deny the news report that we want to build ships, because Chairman Chang has said that Evergreen would place orders when steel price is low," a staff member from Evergreen Marine's press office told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"But right now, there are no specific plans yet," she added. (dpa)