South Asia Shining in Container Growth
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Amid generally weak demand around the world the South Asia region is the shining light for container growth, says Drewry's Maritime Research.
Growth in container shipping is becoming a rare commodity; global port throughput only increased by 1% in 2015 (the second lowest on record behind 2009) and the first quarter of 2016 was even worse with only a 0.5% rise.
That the industry can point to any growth at all is largely down to strong volumes in the South Asia/Indian Subcontinent region, which saw box port traffic (including empties and transhipment) gain 5.3% in the first three months of 2016 – the highest attained by any region and 10 times the global average.
Port throughput in South Asia grew by 5.3% in 2015 to reach just under 22 million teu, which puts the region on a par with the East Coast of North America.
Each of the South Asian countries contributed to the additional teu count with India’s throughput growing by 234,000 teu, Sri Lanka’s by 278,000 teu, Pakistan’s by 274,000 teu and Bangladesh’s by 324,000 teu.