Continued slow growth for ports

The latest report from the Shanghai International Shipping Institute (SISI) said that the less active economy and trade in the Eurasia region further slowed seaborne trade demand with the global port industry maintaining slow paced development.

In quarter three, the main ports worldwide saw a growth rate of barely 3%, following the trend of the downward curve since the beginning of 2014.

The number of ports with negative growth increased, while the rest generally saw an increase of under 10%. That is excepting Tangshan (China) and Hedland (Australia), up by 13.6% and 31.6% respectively when compared with the same quarter in 2013.

During Q3, cargo through the Chinese ports slid to an increase of only 3.3%, far below the 11.6% increase of a year earlier. SISI said that weak domestic demand and foreign trade continue to jointly dampen port development in the region.

For Europe, the slower manufacturing expansion in the UK, Germany and France continues to take its toll along on port growth, along with the spillover effects from the economic sanction in Russia. Both have led to commodity import and export falling in the Euro zone.

Meanwhile, the ‘reindustrialisation’ policy adopted by the US means that insufficient logistics capacity combined with continued strikes have also resulted in slower throughput growth this quarter.