The global financial crisis and exchange rate issues are likely to hit volume growth at the world's two largest container ports.
Kuah Boon Wee, chief executive of PSA's Singapore Terminals, the largest container port in the world, expects slower volume growth at the Port of Singapore during the rest of 2008.
Kuah said after the Terminal Operation Conference Asia in Shanghai that he expects growth in throughput to be weaker than in the first two months of 2008. The world's busiest port in 2007 handled 4.8 million TEUs in January and February this year, an increase of 11 percent.
Kuah said while volume would continue to be good in 2008, the financial crisis might hit trade. He also noted the keen competition in the region, and said: "Our battle with gate ports continues."
Singapore faces competition, not just for the number one slot globally, but also from its Malaysian neighbours in the Port of Tanjung Pelepas and Port Klang.
Throughput growth of the first two months at the Singapore port, shows a year-on-year increase of 13 percent in January and a weakening to nine percent in February.
Singapore is not the only port suffering from softening growth. Shanghai, its arch rival and second largest boxport worldwide, has recorded its lowest volume increase in recent years.
At 2.5 percent for February, the figure is way below its target of at least 15 percent growth for the year.
The drastic slowdown is said to have been caused by China's worst storms in 40 years, which brought transport chaos in the central and eastern parts of China in January and early February, ahead of the Chinese New Year.
Shanghai International Port Group chairman Lu Hai Hu, who also spoke at the conference, said that the exchange rate and the country's export policy had also affected port volumes. But Lu did not elaborate on his remarks.
He said that the country's macroeconomic control measures had had a "certain effect" on the firm's fund-raising projects. Lu said that one of the growth strategies of the group is to expand its market share in the northeast Asia's transhipment market.
However, he said it is not known when the country will loosen the rule to allow foreign shipping lines to carry exported cargo along Chinese ports, a measure that is expected to boost transhipment volume in Shanghai.
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