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Transportation
COVERSTORY
switching towards Asia. China has become
the world’s number one exporter with 26.5
per cent of volumes of containers by far.”
With regard to the recent boom of intra-
Asia trade, out of the 20 busiest container
trade routes 11 involve Greater China as
origin or destination representing 37.6% of
world volumes. “It is also worth noting that
seven routes have an emerging market for
both origin and destination for 21.3 per cent
of total volumes,” the report said.
During a year of anticipated volumes
recovery, regional differences are expected
to be as large in 2010 as in 2009 in
emerging markets, according to Drewry’s
container volumes forecasts, ranging from
a continued drop of 7.7 per cent in Eastern
Europe to growth of 5.7 per cent in the Far
East sub-region.
“This number includes China, where
there would be a throughput growth of 14.8
per cent,” according to Credit Suisse’s ports
5.5
per cent CAGR globally in
2009E–2017E, 3.2 times faster
than the capacity
analyst, Ingrid Wei. Meanwhile, the Middle
Eastern countries are investing significantly
to expand the ports infrastructure. “We
expect the region to consolidate its position
as a transshipment hub on the Asia-Europe
trade. The growth expected in O&D cargo
through out the region already seems to be
driving the need for capacity upgrades,” the
analysts said.
With Gulftainer, originally operating from
the Sharjah terminal and now expanding in
Kuwait, there is competition to DP World in
the Middle East, to some extent. “Although
we do not think this competition is as strong
as the one that HPH and PSA seem to be
facing in Asia, it could limit the pricing power
of DP World in the region in the future,” the
analysts said.
Gulftainer already reported throughput
growth of 9.9 per cent in 2009 to TEU 2.75m
compared with an expected decrease of 7.2
per cent over the region. The steady flow of
containers through the Sharjah Container
Terminal (SCT) has not diminished as
imported goods continue to move to
supply the businesses in Sharjah and
beyond, according to Sharjah-based
terminal and logistics firm Gulftainer, which
operates the Terminal on behalf of the
Sharjah Ports Authority.
SCT Manager Paul Hennessy confirms
one per cent in as early as third quarter of
2010, and stay below 0.5 per cent in Japan
for the whole period.
The medium to longer-term growth
outlook looks quite moderate and “in
our view, that industry experts rely on
a much more measured recovery than
what would have traditionally occurred with
the past pattern”.
The report also argues that the global
emerging markets regional differences
are high. “Containerised cargo trade has,
for some time already, been significantly
May 2010 Link 17