Containers Don’t Lie
Container volume in Chinese ports isn’t down as much as I had feared. I once worked for the U.S. Maritime Administration, so I pay attention to such arcane things. What it is telling me is that, while most of the world is still in the doldrums, China is riding out this recession pretty well. I don’t listen much to the touts for China stocks and funds, but container volume doesn’t lie and tells you what is happening now.
Container Barge
The South China Morning Post ran an article yesterday about container traffic in China’s big ports. The ports that handle mostly ocean cargo are facing headwinds. Preliminary reports for this October show Shanghai’s traffic languishing 9.7% below October 2008. Similarly, Shenzhen saw a 10% year-on-year decline. Both ports are expected to show double-digit declines in container traffic for the full year, reflecting the worldwide reduction in international trade.
China’s mainly domestic ports are looking a whole lot better, indicating that domestic consumption is fairly healthy. The port of Guangzhou saw a 27.7% rise in traffic in September, bringing that port’s annual downturn to a more bearable 4.2% loss so far. Guangzhou’s performance is overshadowed by Yingkou, which boasts a 29.2% increase thus far in 2009, goosed by a 57.5% surge in containers in September.
Non-containerized cargo is also growing, fueled by a still-insatiable demand for commodities. Coal and iron ore imports are up tremendously.
