After rising, India box volume falls in February, but uptick expected

CONTAINER traffic fell 8.7 per cent in February from January across India's major ports after posting month to month gains in the previous two months, reported LiveMint The Wall Street Journal.

But year-on-year container throughput showed growth in the first two months of the year with 2.8 per cent more boxes lifted, and with a pronounced increase expected in March.

Correspondingly, aggregate cargo volumes grew by a marginal 1.4 per cent, lower than the growth of 13.2 per cent in December and 8.2 per cent in January, said the report.

The February decline was expected as it is a month historical slumps for the year before the expected uptick in March.

Container volumes at Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), the country's biggest box port, increased 27.6 per cent year on year in February, against 30 per cent increases in December and 22 per cent January.

Month-to-month container volumes at JNPT fell 9.1 per cent in February from January in line with declines in other major ports. This was against a growth of 1.4 per cent in January and around eight per cent month to month in December.

(Source: www.schednet.com)