Global maritime trade as well as port throughput showed the first signs of recession at the end of 2019 already, with growth slowing in all regions and throughput shrinking in a number of ports in the last quarter. Most experts expected the situation to improve in 2020 – not knowing about the impact of the COVID19 pandemic, the importance of which has affected economic development, first slowly and then increasingly. Moreover, the ISL SSMR figures confirm last year's statement that the days of double-digit growth are over. Throughput in Asian ports developed unevenly in 2019. Of the leading countries, 11 recorded growth rates above the continent's average (1.4% in 2019), and 20 countries showed below-average growth, with big players Japan and Taiwan experienced throughput losses, while India, Singapore and Saudi Arabia stagnated or saw changes between 0% and -1%.
European ports' throughput recorded only modest growth. Compared to other continents, it is below average, with an increase of 1.1% in total cargo traffic. Even the development in the last half decade, with an average growth of 1.4% per year, is not even half the global level. The 140 European ports included in the ISL Port Data Base show a throughput growth of 43 million tons for 2019. A total of 3.92 billion tons of cargo was handled in these ports. This disappointing performance, already in 2019, is primarily due to stagnant general cargo throughput and disillusioning container throughput results. General cargo traffic (including containers) as the main commodity group increased by 0.1% to 1.6 billion tons. Dry bulk traffic increased by 1.7% to 835 million tons. Liquid bulk traffic showed the best result in this context with an increase of 2.2% to 1.5 billion tons. Both South and Central American and North American ports suffered from a significant decline in throughput from 2018 to 2019. In addition, like ports in all other regions worldwide, they suffered from economic uncertainty and weakened consumer demand, which led to sharp declines in port throughput figures in the first nine months of 2020 due to the COVID19 pandemic.
https://www.isl.org/en/news/port-handling-worldwide-burdened-major-uncertainties
2021/2/28 12:33:46