A Year Of Two Halves

摘要

Never before has the container shipping industry experienced such contrasting fortunes in one year and faced such uncertain prospects in the future. While the first half of 2008 was characterised by robust rates of growth with many ports, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Antwerp and Jawaharal Nehru Port (JNP), India, posting double-digit increases in their throughputs, September saw a sudden stall. In the final months of the year month-on-month traffic volumes at several ports were actually lower than in the corresponding period of 2007. Indeed, of the top 30 ports listed in Table 1 only eight registered growth rates of more than 10 in 2008. This compared with 21 ports in 2007 (see 'Chinese record takeaway', CI March 2008, pp50-52).