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Busan box volumes rise in March

Busan box volumes rise in March
South Korea’s Busan port has posted slightly higher container throughput in March both on a year-on-year and month-on-month basis, according to figures from Busan Port Authority (BPA).

In March, box volumes at the East Asian port inched up by 1.9% to 1.63m teu compared to 1.6m teu in the same period of 2014, figures from BPA showed.

Last month’s volumes also rose by 7.2% compared to 1.52m teu recorded in February this year.

BPA figures further showed that transhipment cargoes of 809,045 teu accounted for 49.6% of last month’s throughput.

BPA has been trying to attract more transhipment cargoes to Busan port from the north-south trunk route around Oceania, Africa and South America where strong growth potential of logistics has been observed. The port authority is also trying to bring in more transhipment cargoes from northern China and the western coast of Japan.

Transhipment cargoes have been moving up at Busan port, as the volumes accounted for 50.5% of the total throughput of 18.65m teu in 2014, the first time that it crossed the halfway mark.

In the first quarter of 2015, Busan port registered throughput of 4.71m teu, an increase of 5.7% compared to the previous corresponding period.

BPA is aiming to handle a total throughput of 19.5m teu this year, which would be a growth of 4.6% from last year.