Shanghai became world's top container port in September

THE Port of Shanghai's container throughput increased by three per cent in September to 2.23 million TEU, finally overtaking Singapore, which handled 2.15 million TEU, reports the Paris-based AXS-Alphaliner.

But year-to-date, Singapore handled 18.94 million TEU versus 18.24 million TEU for Shanghai.

Of course, it has long been assumed that Shanghai was the de facto No 1 container port in the world because of Singapore's transshipment volume gives it an artificially edge because so many of its boxes are counted twice.

Typically, when a box moves from ship to shore or shore to ship, it is counted, presumably having arrived or departed the port where it was leaving or arriving for the first time. But in the case of transhipments, boxes arrive at a transfer port such as Singapore, where they are counted once when they arrive and again when they leave on another ship for their final destination.

If one adjusts for this phenomenon, Shanghai has been the largest container port in the world for a few years as few of its boxes are of the double-counted transhipment type, thus arriving or departing by sea once, not twice.

China ports recorded their highest monthly throughput this year in September while most major ports outside of China suffered a fall in box traffic during the month compared to August.

"Apart from Shanghai, the remainder of the top five container ports worldwide suffered volume declines in September," the newsletter said.

Total container throughput at the top 11 Chinese box ports, including Hong Kong, amounted to 10.89 million in September, which is said to be the highest container traffic volume recorded so far this year. Aside from Shanghai, the increase is reported to be led by the ports of Ningbo, Qingdao and Tianjin.

In the US, the west coast ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach suffered a 7.7 per cent decline in box volumes to 1.02 million TEU in September compared to the previous month, which the newsletter said marked the largest "overall drop of laden volumes on the west coast."

It said that total laden import volumes at the six main west coast ports fell by 2.5 per cent, and export volumes decreased by six per cent. Only Tacoma registered positive growth in September.

"The latest statistics from the main ports suggests that the volume recovery for the container trades is still fragile. In Asia, Hong Kong's month-to-month drop was highest at 7.2 per cent followed by Singapore at 5.9 per cent. Shenzhen also saw a small drop in volume last month as most of the ports in South China saw liftings fall," the newsletter added.

(Source: Transport Weekly)