HONG KONG's port is losing ground to neighbouring ports in south China after posting a 5.3 per cent drop in container throughput in 2012 compared to the previous year at 23.09 million TEU.
Hong Kong world's No 3 box port ahead of Shenzhen, but volume falls 5.3pc HONG KONG's port is losing ground to neighbouring ports in south China after posting a 5.3 per cent drop in container throughput in 2012 compared to the previous year at 23.09 million TEU.
However disappointing, the result was good enough to hang on to its third place ranking, beating the port of Shenzhen across the border, which achieved slight year-on-year growth of 1.6 per cent. Shenzhen ports handled 22.94 million TEU last year.
A report by Alphaliner attributes Hong Kong's weaker results to mainly the drop in mid-stream volumes, which shrank by 19.3 per cent to 5.62 million TEU, its lowest level in over a decade. On the other hand, the Hong Kong's main Kwai Tsing terminals held on to most of their volumes last year, with 17.47 million TEU handled compared to 17.42 million TEU in 2011.Hong Kong's performance highlights that the city's terminals are continuing to lose ground to other south China ports in the Pearl River Delta as overall growth slows in the region.
The aggregate container volume handled at the three main Pearl River Delta ports of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou fell by one per cent year-on-year in 2012. Guangzhou was the best performer recording traffic growth of 2.2 per cent in 2012 to total 14.74 million TEU.
Shenzhen's growth was led mainly by gains at Shekou and Yantian, while Chiwan and Dachan Bay reported losses among their terminal operators.
