WASHINGTON: Containerised cargo grew by 1.7% to 48m teu in 2015 in the ports in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a report from the UN’s Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). “The figures confirm two trends observed in recent years in the region: a slowdown in foreign trade in container terminals and high heterogeneity of growth rates within the region,” ECLAC said.
The 1.7% regional average increase in port container throughput is higher than the rates of growth in 2014 (0.8%) and in 2013 (0.7%) but did not regain the level of previous years – it was 5.9% in 2012. The sluggishness of 2015 was mainly determined by the decrease of activity in five countries: Brazil, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
The total volume of activity in 2015 reached approximately 48m teu. The first 40 ports account for about 90% of the operations of this type of cargo in the region and the following 98 ports move the remaining 10% or 5.9m teu, the Chile-based UN organisation said.
The data collected indicate a great heterogeneity in the behaviour of port movements, both the sub-regional and country. In 2015, the east coast of South America saw activity decrease by 1.4% which was mainly due to the reduction registered in Brazilian ports movement. The WCSA shows a slight increase of 1.1%. The limited development of this activity in Chilean ports saw 0.1% growth and a 3.6% fall at Peruvian ports counterbalances the 6.3% growth rate in Ecuador and a 6.6% increase the port of Buenaventura in the Colombian Pacific.
