CHIEF executive of Maersk's regional line, MCC Transport, Tim Wickmann, warns that the big risk facing the box trade in the intra-Asia is ports being unable to cope with mega cargo flows from mega-ships.
Carriers expect volumes to grow in as a fast-growing middle class stimulates trade. Manufacturing is also leaving China, says Newark's Journal of Commerce reported.
"The volumes haven't been there this year, which is why there has not been much congestion, but port and infrastructure is the biggest worry," Mr Wickmann said.
Last year congestion caused delays at several ports in the region in the world's largest trade, with the greatest bottlenecks at Manila where a day-time truck ban aimed at easing road congestion caused huge numbers of containers to stack up the quay, bringing the port to a standstill. There was also varying levels of congestion in a number of other major Asian ports.
The emergence of the big shipping alliances also contributed to congestion at Asia's main transshipment hubs, increasing complexity and driving up the number of inter-terminal truck moves. For instance, it is believed that the Hong Kong port's truck moves between terminals to reposition alliance containers may have topped one million a year.
Mr Wickmann said in intra-Asia, containers are loaded and off-loaded from feeder vessels and the ships call at a number of different ports, so the number of moves per box could be doubled.
Managing director of CMA CGM's intra-Asia specialist Cheng Lie Navigation Line (CNC), Robert Sallons, agreed, saying he expected congestion to be a problem in the future.
"Should the volumes start to go up on a global basis "intra-Asia also includes feeder services for the mainline operators - we will see congestion becoming an issue across all intra-Asia services because most of the ports are at capacity. I do predict that to be a future problem, but when, I don't know," he said.
There was another area that the intra-Asia executives agreed on - the difficulty in operating profitably on many routes in the region.
WORLD SHIPPING
25 September 2015 - 21:26
Singapore's MCC Transport CEO warns intra-Asia unready for megas
CHIEF executive of Maersk's regional line, MCC Transport, Tim Wickmann, warns that the big risk facing the box trade in the intra-Asia is ports being unable to cope with mega cargo flows from mega-ships.
WORLD SHIPPING
25 September 2015 - 21:26
Singapore's MCC Transport CEO warns intra-Asia unready for megas
This news 6156 hits received.
These news may also interest you