Although many domestic and foreign ports are under pressure to increase container throughput, the Beibu Gulf port in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region bucked the trend after container throughput increased in January, its operator said.
According to the latest information released by Shenzhen-listed Beibu Gulf Port Group, container throughput at the port reached 558,100 20-foot equivalent units this month, up 15 percent year-on-year.
The port has been working hard to explore supply sources in western China as new land and sea transport routes in the region and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement are pushed forward, the group said.
Impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, weak external demand and geopolitical shocks, container throughput at major foreign ports such as Singapore fell 4.9% year-on-year to 2.99 million TEUs in January, compared with 726,014 TEUs at the Port of Los Angeles in the United States, according to information released by PortNews, a global shipping and port news provider. That’s down 16 percent from a year ago.
Major port cities in China’s Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions face similar challenges. For example, the Ningbo-Zhoushan port in Zhejiang province and Guangzhou Port in Guangdong province both recently announced lower container throughput forecasts for January. Their final operating figures for the month are not yet available.
Domestic ports in both regions have more routes to European and North American markets. Lei Xiaohua, a researcher at the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences in Nanning, said the current drop in commodity demand in these markets has led to a drop in container throughput.—–ESCO Spare Parts 18S(forging)