"Amazon China" listed in FMC’s registry of intermediaries, forwarder executive says. E-tailer Amazon.com Inc.’s Chinese operations have been granted authority by the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to operate as an ocean freight forwarder, according to a published report. According to Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport Inc., a San Francisco-based freight forwarder and customs broker, "Amazon China" is now listed in the FMC’s directory of "Ocean Transport Intermediaries." According to a blog post by Peterson yesterday , the official name on the FMC registry is "Beijing Century JOYO Courier Service Co. Ltd.," with the trade name "Amazon China" listed on its license. Peterson posted that a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed that JOYO to be a "significant subsidiary" of Amazon.com Inc. , and that it’s currently doing business as Amazon China, Peterson wrote. The global ocean freight market is estimated to be around $100 billion a year. It has been plagued by severe overcapacity for several years as vessel supply has far exceeded demand. U.K. consultancy Drewry Maritime Consultants Ltd. said on Monday that global containership growth surpassed world port activity for the fourth consecutive year, and that global box capacity is approaching a record 20 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs. Global container rates plumbed record lows in 2015 and show no near-term signs of rebounding. The extreme imbalance in the global market has driven down ocean freight rates by about 30 percent year-over-year, according to investment firm Robert W. Baird and Co. Inc. Theoretically, this could spell opportunity for a high-volume company like Seattle-based Amazon, which attempts to leverage its massive volumes to capture low prices from its shipping partners. Amazon has also expressed a desire to develop its own transportation and logistics portfolio to support the movements of its own orders and those of merchants […]