Hong Kong Shippers' Council executive director Sunny Ho was cited as saying that 2014 may see still more negative growth, after throughput fell 4.2% in the first 11 months of this year.
The port suffered from a major strike earlier this year and other issues include difficulties in boosting transhipment volumes due to the shortage of land and labour in the city. The decline will be exacerbated by more factories leaving the Pearl River Delta to low cost countries like Vietnam, Ho was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile a report from Jefferies expected the mainland's throughput growth to accelerate to 7.6% next year from 6.7% this year as the economic environment continued to improve there while restocking amid very low inventory levels in Europe could help boost Chinese exports as well.
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