The global port industry will maintain “low-speed growth” in 2015 following slow global economic and trade recovery in 2014, says the Shanghai International Sipping Institute (SISI).
In its latest Global Port Development Report (2014), SISI says 2014 saw a sharp rise in container shipping volume, as global ports’ “transformed their industrial adjustment acceleration and their operation mode optimisation”.
Container throughput growth rate at global major ports exceeded the cargo throughput rate, according to the report, but throughput growth rate at ports gradually slowed down, declining to 4.3% from 5.1%, as the global economic and trade recovering was still slow.
Despite this, various ports maintained their expansion trend. This was especially true in Europe, says SISI, where cargo throughput achieved a year-on-year increase of 3.7%, setting a new high in recent years.
While the report says the industry will see continued “low-speed growth” in 2015, it also highlights many uncertainties surround global economic and trade development including the implementation of “industry localisation” strategy in the US; the sustainability of financial and monetary policy in Europe; the declining trend of Japan’s economic development; gradually declining trend of growth rate in emerging markets like China; and the risk of geopolitical friction, which the report says may hamper the development of global seaborne trade.
However, it is expected that continuous economic improvement will sustain constant and stable growth of port trade. SIS estimates that the growth rate of global port throughput in 2015 will still stay at around 4% and global container trade will also expand in 2015, but dry bulk cargo trade will “lack staying power”.
The report says the development of container trade will be driven by factors including the recovery of the economic and trade activities, the increasingly close international bilateral and multilateral cooperation, the deepening of such trade cooperation as the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as well as the improvement of such regional trade environments as China’s pilot free trade zones and China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Area. It is estimated that the growth rate of container throughput at global ports in 2015 will be maintained at above 5%.
