The total throughput of all monitored 94 ports in March of this year was approx. 46.9 million TEU, which corresponds to an increase of more than 5.5 million TEU or a plus of 14% compared to March of the previous year. Although the analysed regions show very different increases, the situation is overall very pleasing from a port perspective. Once again, the ports of the American West Coast achieved the most significant increase. Here, an increase in throughput of a whopping 46% was achieved compared to March of the previous year.

But other market indicators also point to this positive development. For example, the capacity of idling container ships waiting for deployment is only 205 thousand TEU, a tenth of the value in summer last year. In addition, according to the industry information service Clarksons, the number of orders for newbuilding of container ships in the 1st quarter rose to an all-time high. These and other notable manifestations of the economic recovery will be highlighted in more detail in the next issue of our SSMR focusing on container shipping.

https://www.isl.org/en/news/container-throughput-rose-march-2021-to-record-levels-never-seen