by Lloyd's List
30 August 2024 (Lloyd's List) - CHINA’s two main port operators have revealed the extent of their gains from the shipping disruption during the first half of 2024, which raised throughput at their main home bases.
However, the performance of their respective overseas assets was more patchy, depending on where they were positioned in relation to the Red Sea crisis.
In an exchange filing, China Merchants Port Group said that both the domestic and overseas port markets showed relatively faster growth as the company outperformed the industry as a whole and increased its market share in major regions.
Group throughput rose 8% to 71.8m teu, driven by a 7% gain in volumes at ports in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which contributed an aggregate container throughput of 53.5m.
This was mainly driven by the Pearl River Delta region and the Bohai Rim region. The West Shenzhen Port Zone, where CMPort is the dominant operator, saw especially good throughput, with a 26% rise in boxes handled to nearly 7m teu.
The Bohai Rim, where CMPort is also prominent, saw a 10% rise in throughput to 16.1m teu as budding terminals in Qingdao and Liaoning caught up, posting double digit growth. These gains were mainly on the back of strong export growth in their respective hinterlands.
Cosco Shipping Ports posted very similar results, with 8% growth in overall throughput to 69.9m teu. China volumes, though, rose at a faster pace for the ports arm of China’s top container line, rising 10% to 53.3m teu as it leveraged on its operations at ports in the main export regions.
Throughput at its Bohai Rim ports rose 8% to 24.4m teu and accounted for more than a third of the group’s total.
In the Pearl River Delta, throughput rose 7% to 13.7m teu and comprised about a fifth of the total. Although smaller overall than CMPort in the key Shenzhen port market, with only the mainly transshipment-focuses Yantian International Container Terminal, CSP took its fair share of the export bounty through its rapidly expanding Guangzhou South China Ocean Gate Terminal, which posted a 7% rise to nearly 3m teu.
Cosco Shipping Ports cited the recovery in domestic and foreign trade and the rebound in demand in the US and Europe in relation to the gains in volumes.
The main container terminal operator in China also benefitted from its feeder port network in the export-oriented Yangtze River Delta region. These ramped up their mainline and feeder service networks and rode on the recovery in foreign trade routes to grow 14% to 8.1m teu in throughput.
Meanwhile, CSP’s early entry into the quickly growing southwest coast region has also reaped dividends, with a 20% rise in throughput to 4.3m teu.
While coming from a relatively low base and only comprising 6% of total group throughput, the region’s main port in Guangxi has risen from practically nowhere and is set to gain in future from China’s enthusiastic engagement in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the rising demand for economic and trade co-operation between China and Asean.
In overseas operations, the ports’ respective fortunes depended much on where they were located in terms of the Middle East tensions and the export boom. For example, CMPort’s CICT in Sri Lanka saw throughput rise 9% to 1.7m teu mainly due to the increase in transshipment cargoes owing to the Red Sea situation.
Likewise, its PDSA in Djibouti saw throughput rise 77% to 650,000 teu from a low base for the same reason.
Cosco Shipping Ports, on the the other hand, saw throughput at Piraeus Container Terminal decrease by 13% to 2m teu due to the same Red Sea issues.
Looking ahead, though, Cosco Shipping Ports said: “While imports and exports to traditional markets such as America and Europe are picking up, trade with emerging markets such as Asean and Latin America is becoming increasingly close, which will bring significant opportunities for the development of the port industry.”
