Taiwan's Kaohsiung Harbour is expected move down a notch as Rotterdam moves up to become the world's sixth-busiest container port by 2008, reports Taipei's China Times.

Quoting Kaohsiung Harbour Bureau director Hsieh Ming-hui, the report said that in the first nine months in 2007, Kaohsiung handled 10.4 million TEU, up 4.1 per cent year-on-year.

Rotterdam, providing latest statistics for the first six months before the peak season began, reported a throughput of 5.3 million TEU up 13 per cent.

Rotterdam's container volume growth has been higher than Kaohsiung's and Mr Hsieh warned that by year-end, his port's ranking may well slip to the eighth place if Dubai's volume grows 15 per cent as expected.

Kaohsiung was the world's third largest container port in the 1990s, but has been dropping because of the expansion of neighbouring ports and Taiwan's five-decade ban on direct shipping with China.

Currently, Kaohsiung is the world's sixth largest container port after Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Busan.