Rapid growth of container volume at Busan Port

It was totalized that the container volume dealt at Busan Port in January and February increased by 8 percent compared to the same period of last month, which made this year? cargo volume prospect bright. Especially, transshipment cargo volume in February marked 13.5 percent increase which has been the highest record since August, 2005 when it stood at 13.6 percent increase.

Busan Port Authority(BPA) estimated that container volume dealt at Busan Port for the last two months is 2,006,015 TEU, 8.2 percent increase from previous year? 1,871,734 TEU. Among the volume, import and export cargo accounted for 1,143,608 TEU, 10.2 percent increase and transshipment cargo 881,471 TEU, 7.5 percent increase.

It is especially regarded as good news that the transshipment cargo volume has continued to increase by the range of 2.0~12.1 percent for the consecutive 4 months since last October when the volume turned from downward growth to upward growth for the first time after 6 consecutive months of minus growth. As the volume marked 13.5 percent increase in February (390,331 TEU to 443,032 TEU) BPA carefully evaluated the double digit increase as a good omen that Busan Port is getting out of doldrums and on the track of cargo volume increase in earnest.

The total container volume dealt at Busan Port in 2006 was 12,038,786 TEU, a mere 1.7 percent increase from previous year? 11,843,151 TEU: import and export cargo accounted for 6,803,183 TEU, 3.4 percent increase and transshipment cargo 5,207,731 TEU, 0.6 percent increase.

It is said that the abolition of container tax at the end of 2006 and the move to increase their cargo volume by shipping companies using Busan Port as transshipment port contributed to the rapid cargo volume increase along with the 20 percent rise of Japan-bound transshipment cargo.