Chinese ports start 2017 strong

Author:admin Time:2017-04-10 Hit：1384

China’s container ports got off to a strong start in 2017, with healthy volume increases at most of the main commercial ports over the first two months of the year.

Throughput at the top eight ports expanded 4.8 percent in January and February to just more than 24 million 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) compared with 22.98 million TEUs handled in the first two months of 2016, according to figures from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region also performed well, with volumes rising 12.7 percent year-over-year to 3.2 million TEUs in January and February, preliminary figures from the Hong Kong Port and Maritime Board show.

Growth in throughput at Hong Kong resumed in August of last year following more than two years of successive monthly declines. The port had a very strong February, with volumes up 26 percent, although the Chinese New Year falling in late January this year compared with February in 2016 adds a significant distortion to the monthly comparison.

The growth in volumes at China’s ports has so far not transferred to the rate environment, and spot rates on the trans-Pacific have continued to decline since their mid-January peak.

The spot rate for shipping a 40-foot container to the US West Coast is currently around $1,340, down from a peak of $2,211 in mid-January, data from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange’s Shanghai Containerized Freight Index show.

The Pearl River Delta port of Guangzhou is the top performing port in China in growth terms so far this year. Year-over-year throughput at Guangzhou in the first two months expanded by 11.3 percent to just less than 2.8 million TEUs.

Shanghai is performing strongly as well, with year-over-year volume growth of 7.6 percent. More than 5.9 million TEUs crossed the wharves at the world’s busiest container port in the first two months of the year.

The other main Yangtze River Delta port of Ningbo-Zhoushan continued to build on the 4.5 percent growth it achieved in 2016, with volumes up 4.8 percent to more than 3.8 million TEUs.