The Bohai Rim region continued to grow strongly with throughput rising to 1.68m teu from 1.41m teu in the previous corresponding period, in the process overtaking volumes at the key Yangtze River Delta ports. The gains were led by Dalian Container Terminal and Qinghuangdao Port New Harbour Container Terminal, which grew by almost half and 25.4% respectively. All the terminals at Dalian Container Terminal were merged under one entity last year.
Laggards meanwhile included the Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta, with the former’s ports seeing throughput practically stagnate with 1.0% fewer boxes moved at 1.66m teu while the Pearl River Delta region saw volumes slide 1.3% to 2.22m teu.
While the falls are not big in percentage terms, these two regions still comprise the highest throughput among all the group’s segments apart from the overseas ports and the rapidly recovering Bohai Rim region, and the long slow slide would seem to reflect structural changes in China’s economy. This looks set to be exacerbated in the months ahead as the export-oriented ports in these regions start to feel the effects of the US-China tariff war.
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The fledgling Southeast coast ports continued their steady growth with throughput rising 3.6% to 470,800 teu while CSP’s sole Southwest coast holding at Guangxi Qinzhou International Container Terminal saw volumes rise 8.2% to 123,000 teu.
CSP’s overseas terminals saw throughput rise 40.5% to 2.09m teu with good gains seen almost across the board except for CSP Zeebrugge Terminal and the SSA Terminals in Seattle where volumes dropped by almost a third and 5.2% respectively. Throughput at Antwerp Gateway also all but stagnated with volumes of 195,300 teu hardly rising from the corresponding month in 2017.
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