Singapore is trying hard to appear unconcerned that it will lose the title of world’s busiest container port to Shanghai this year.
The truth is that in actual container number terms, the port lost the race long ago.
Around 95 percent of Singapore’s container volume is transhipment cargo passing through. The boxes are lifted off one arriving ship and placed on another that is departing.
The two moves – container off, container on – means that, although there is only one box, it is counted twice. That double counted container is then entered in the official tally and presto, the throughput almost doubles.
Up at the port of Shanghai, on the other hand, most of the containers passing through are direct exports from factories in the Yangtze River Delta. Because they are lifted off a truck and placed on a departing ship the boxes are only counted once.
This is the same at most ports in China, which are all export oriented.
In all fairness, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore never made the rules and all ports around the world double count transhipment cargo. Hong Kong would not have been on top of the busiest port list were it not for counting transshipment boxes twice, and some of its river trade containers are even counted four times.
But there is no stopping China’s growing exports, and the global financial crisis merely slowed its ports’ steady march to the top of the pile.
So Singapore and Hong Kong can count their customers’ containers as many times as they like, but first Shanghai, and next year Shenzhen, will vault into the top two places.
There is little doubt that by the end of the decade, mainland ports will inhabit all 10 top spots.