Major capacity shortfall in the east
Drewry Shipping Consultants believes that East Asian ports will lack 14m TEUs in capacity by 2007 unless more investment in facilities is made a priority. In that year demand will be 143.3m TEUs compared with capacity of 129.5m TEUs, assuming an annual projected growth rate of 8%-9%, with China seemingly to continue growing by at least 20% annually over the next two years. However, the situation in South East Asia is better, with a shortfall of just 600,000TEUs.
According to Drewry director Neil Davidson, China is growing at such a phenomenal rate in terms of container cargo that presently it is just a fight to try and keep up with demand, while potential for investment in container handling facilities is huge.
The major headache is China, which Davidson believes could lose box traffic exports to neighbouring ports in Hong Kong and South Korea if more capacity does not rapidly come on stream. He rejects suggestions that the best projects have already been snapped up, pointing to opportunities at Jingdao, Ningbo and Fujiao.
Hong Kong, however, cannot continue to act as the region’s main gateway, since compared to ports in neighbouring China it is very expensive. Drewry sees traffic there peaking in the short term, with ports such as Shenzhen being a much stronger investment opportunity.
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