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Kaohsiung’s port drops out of the world’s top 10 list

Kaohsiung has slipped from the list of the world’s top 10 container ports as container traffic continues to be hit hard by the global economic downturn, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.

Last year, container-handling volume at Kaohsiung totaled 9.68 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), down 5.6 percent from 2007 when it was 10.26 million TEU, the ministry said.

The decrease dragged the port’s world ranking down from 8th in 2007 to 12th last year, the ministry said.

The ministry, however, was optimistic that Kaohsiung’s competitiveness would pick up as a result of the direct shipping links launched between Taiwan and China in December. The volume of cross-strait containers handled by the port reached 74,000 TEU in March, it said.

The ministry’s data show that the world’s five busiest container ports in 2007 maintained their rankings last year.

They were Singapore with 29.92 million TEU, Shanghai with 27.98 million TEU, Hong Kong with 24.25 million TEU, Shenzhen with 21.41 million TEU and Busan with 13.43 million TEU.

Dubai moved from 7th to 6th with 11.83 million TEU; Ningbo from 11th to 7th with 11.23 million TEU; and Guangzhou from 12th to 8th with 11 million TEU.

Ninth place was held by Rotterdam with 10.80 million TEU, dropping from 6th the previous year, while Qingdao maintained its position as the world’s 10th-busiest container port with 10.32 million TEU.

Among the top 10 ports, six were Chinese — Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Guangzhou and Qiangdao.
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