India: Container traffic gathers steam, rises 3.1% in July

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Aug 2009

The shipping sector is showing first signs of revival. Traffic handled at the 12 major ports in the country has seen a 1.17% increase at 1.80 lakh thousand tonnes during the April-July period compared with the same period last year where it stood at 1.78 lakh thousand tonnes. Besides, container movement volumes have now begun to show some momentum upwards. For instance, in July 2009, container volumes rose 3.1% over the last year, second month in a row, after seeing a decline in the first two months of this fiscal. But the volumes for FY2010 till date has declined by 2.9%, according to the Indian Ports Association (IPA).
"Container traffic volumes has increased in the last three months. These are good signs. However, most of this traffic is in-bound, with Chinese imports picking up," said an official of a Chennai-based shipping company.
"We believe the trade environment in India is improving. And with GDP expected to grow at around 6% in FY10, we believe the worst may be over for the Indian economy," said KR Choksey, a brokerage said. "We estimate the cargo growth for FY10 to be in the range of around 8%."
Though container volumes increased, the 12 major ports saw a marginal decline of 1% in cargo handling in July. The ports handled 43.5 lakh tonnes of cargo compared with 44 lakh tonnes in July 2008. According to a leading garment exporter in Tirupur, order volumes have shot up by about 20% in last few months.

Source: Times of India