Soaring exports boost container traffic

The tentative traffic figures for major ports for 2010-11, as available with the Indian Ports Association, suggest that containerised traffic by tonnage grew by 12.84 per cent to 114.04 million tonnes from 101.24 million tonnes in 2009-10. The growth was smaller for TEUs — about 9.37 per cent, at 7.53 million TEUs, up from 6.89 million TEUs, during the period.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT), the country's largest container-handling port, achieved growth of about five per cent at a throughput of 4.27 million TEUs over last year's 4.09 million TEUs. APM Terminals, Maersk's port operating arm, runs Gateway Terminals International (GTI) at JNPT.

GTI's volume increased to 1.85 million TEUs, up from 1.78 million TEUs the year before, while D.P. World's Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal throughput grew to 1.54 million TEUs from 1.53 million TEUs in 2009-10 and the State-run JNPT facility handled 880,000 TEUs (780,000 TEUs).

Foreign trade

The growth was driven by surging foreign trade. Between April and February 2010-11, exports soared 31.4 per cent year-on-year to $208.2 billion, surpassing the target of $200 billion set for the whole year. Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry has announced plans to boost foreign trade to $450 billion by the 2013-14 fiscal. But the performance of JNPT was important for more than one reason.

First, the strained industrial relations at one of the terminals of the port threw up a host of problems. In addition to suspension of work , there was congestion, diversion of ships to less congested ports, cancellation of orders, late deliveries and disruption in rail movement, to name a few.

The situation has improved since then but the backlog remains. Peak productivity, according to some shippers, is still some way off.

Interestingly, JNPT achieved quicker growth compared to several other west coast ports. For example, the throughput of the next-door Mumbai port was up by a meagre 15,000 TEUs, from 58,000 TEUs to 73,000 TEUs. Throughputs increased at Cochin to 312,000 TEUs (290,000 TEUs), Kandla to 160,000 TEUs (147,000 TEUs) and Mormugao to 18,000 TEUs (13,000 TEUs).

On the east coast, the best performer was Chennai, at 1.5 million TEUs (1.2 million TEUs). The throughput at Visakhapatnam was at 144,000 TEUs (97,000 TEUs) and at Tuticorin 467,000 TEUs (440,000 TEUs). The Paradip port and Kolkata Dock System witnessed a marginal drop at 3,000 TEUs (4,000 TEUs) and 377,000 TEUs (378,000 TEUs).

However, together with Haldia, which achieved increase at 149,000 TEUs (124,000 TEUs), the Kolkata port managed to record growth at 526,000 TEUs (502,000 TEUs). Ennore does not handle any containers.

Globally, container volumes saw a strong rebound in 2010, marking an estimated 560 million TEUs, recording an all-time high of 14.5 per cent growth year-on-year after an 8.9 per cent drop in 2009.

Last year's recovery was because of the growing volume in Chinese ports, according to Paris-based maritime analyst Alphaliner. In 2010, the Chinese ports handled 169 million TEUs, roughly 30.1 per cent of the global throughput. The growth was 17.9 per cent over 2009. South America followed China as the second fastest growing container-volume region, with 17.6 per cent increase in throughput.

Chinese booster

China has nine of the world's top 20 ports. The port of Shanghai ranks first globally, Hong Kong third, Shenzhen fourth, Ningbo seventh, Guangzhou eighth, Qingdao ninth, Tianjin 12th, Xiamen 18th and Dalian 20th.

Among the top 50 ports worldwide, the average growth in container volume was 15 per cent, to 363 million TEUs in 2010, over 316 million TEUs in 2009.

Among the port terminal operators, Hong Kong's Hutchison Port Holdings regained its global lead with volume increasing 14.9 per cent to 75 million TEUs in 2010, followed by APM Terminals with a growth of two per cent to 70 million TEUs. China Merchants Holdings International (CMHI), running terminals at several ports in China except Hong Kong, achieved the highest growth of 19.2 per cent but the volume handled was lower at 52.3 million TEUs. CMHI's growth will be boosted because it has acquired a terminal near Lagos and is participating in new projects in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.