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Keelung, Taichung ports see volume growth

Despite the global economic dowturn, Keelung and Taichung ports have shown double-digit growth in transshipment container volume in the first nine months of this year, rising 16.47 percent and 12.68 percent respectively against the same period last year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.

However, Kaohsiung Port could fall out of the top 10 ranking of international seaports this year, as the total cargo containers handled from January to August already trails Ningbo Port in Zhejiang Province and Guangzhou Port in the Guangdong Province.

Kaohsiung ranked No. 8 last year and No. 3 in 2000.

Dubai, Rotterdam and Hamburg have yet to release their statistics. Both Dubai and Rotterdam beat Kaohsiung in the number of containers handled last year.

Singapore tops the list in the number of containers handled in the first nine months of this year, followed by Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen (Guangdong Province) and Busan (South Korea).

Kaohsiung is now neck and neck with Qingdao, Shandong Province. Six of the top 10 spots are expected to be in China. Between January and last month, the total amount of cargo handled by Kaohsiung, Anping (安平) in Tainan County, Keelung, Suao (蘇澳) in Ilan County, Taipei, Taichung and Hualien reached 10.06 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), decreasing 0.8 percent from the same period last year.

During the same period, the port in Kaohsiung handled 7.52 million TEUs, a drop of about 1 percent.

The ministry said yesterday that although the total number of containers handled in Keelung Port was down 2.64 percent from the same period last year, the port could see growth in transshipment container volume because of the significant increase in cargo that is being shipped to other Asian countries.
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