The suffering of European ports isn’t being alleviated by overseas growth, says the latest North European Port Tracker from Hackett Associates and ISL.
The report focuses on the region’s six major container ports, le Havre, Antwerp, Zeebrugge, Rotterdam, Bremen/Bremerhaven and Hamburg predicts incoming volumes will decrease by 0.6% in 2012 to 16.40m teu for 2012 with Antwerp particularly badly hit, losing 5.9% of its volumes.
Although exports are forecast to gain 3.9% to 17.54m teu it’s a worrying turn. “For the first time in five years the balance between exports and imports in the North Range ports has been broken, with imports failing to match exports,” points out the Tracker. “The debt crisis is hitting exports, domestic sales and consumer confidence and thereby imports, adding to the declining trade volumes”, said Ben Hackett of Hackett Associates.
Growth overseas does not seem to be sufficient to drag Europe upwards. Quite the contrary: if the European economy does not accelerate, there is a danger that it will drag down growth in Asia and the Americas. From this perspective, stimulating demand in Europe should be a key priority as it has been after the recession of 2008/2009. “Yet the policy responses of the EU and its member states – even those that would have room to maneuver – point in the opposite direction”, noted Sönke Maatsch of ISL.
