Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Harbor handled 10.59 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year, a 6.6% growth from a year ago and a new annual record, making the facility the 13th biggest port in the world in container traffic, according to Taiwan’s National Development Council (NDC).
The council also disclosed that Taiwan is shelling out NT$64.61 billion (US$2.04 billion) over five years starting 2012 to upgrade the gateway as well as six other key ports so as to improve their efficiency amid rising competition from other maritime hubs.
For Kaohsiung, about 50% of the budget for its improvements has been spent, and construction is set to continue through next year, the council said. Completed was the first phase of construction at the harbor’s international container terminal, a development seen to lift Kaohsiung’s cargo throughput by more than 3 million a year, the NDC said.
The ongoing construction of the second phase of the new Kaohsiung terminal is scheduled to be completed in 2019, when the harbor is expected to have an oil storage tank, the NDC added.
The other ports up for refurbishing are Keelung, Taipei, Taichung, Anping, Suao, and Hualien.
HK port’s traffic
On the other hand, for 2014 as a whole, the port of Hong Kong registered a total cargo throughput increase of 8% to 297.7 million tonnes compared to a year earlier, according to a report by Hong Kong’s Information Services Department.
Of this total, inward cargo increased by 14% to 184.2 million tonnes, while outward cargo recorded virtually no change at 113.6 million tonnes.
For boxed shipments, the port handled 22.2 million TEUs of containers, representing a decrease of 1% compared with 2013. By breakdown, laden containers decreased by 1% to 19 million TEUs, while empty containers increased by 3% to 3.2 million TEUs.
Among laden containers, inward containers decreased by 2% to 9.5 million TEUs, while outward containers recorded virtually no change at 9.5 million TEUs.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, total cargo throughput reached 75.2 million tonnes, virtually unchanged from the fourth quarter of 2013. Of this total, inward cargo increased by 3% to 45.8 million tonnes, while outward cargo decreased by 4% to 29.4 million tones.
On box volumes, in the last quarter of 2014, the port handled 5.4 million TEUs, representing a decrease of 7% compared with a year earlier. Within this total, laden and empty containers decreased by 8% and 3% to 4.6 million TEUs and 0.8 million TEUs respectively.
Among laden containers, inward and outward containers dropped by 9% and 8% respectively to 2.3 million TEUs.
Photo: DDM Xiao
