A little increase for South Korean container traffic in January

The Korean Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) announced that the estimated total containerized cargo volumes through major Korean ports increased slightly to 1,840,000 TEU in January, up by 2.8% from 1,791,000 TEU for the same period in 2012.

Among them, import / export cargo traffic recorded 1,076,000 TEU, increasing 2.4%. The transshipment cargo volume also expanded to 728,000 TEU, up by 5.3% compared with the same period in 2012. The cargo traffic increase was due to increased exports to America and China.

However the offshore cargo traffic significantly shrunk to 35,000 TEU, down by 26.9% compared with January last year. The offshore cargo has recently decreased every month.

Economic recovery seems to be underway - IMF and OECD predicted that the rate of economic growth in 2013 will be 3.6% and 3.4%, respectively. Allowing for this, the import / export cargo and transshipment cargo traffic in 2013 would be similar in 2012.

Port by port, traffic at Busan Port, the biggest port in South Korea, climbed slightly by 1.7% to 1,388,000 TEU compared with the same period in 2012. Among the figures, the transshipment cargo volume increased to 692,000 TEU, up by 3.4% over the same period last year.

Container cargo traffic at Gwangyang Port also rose to 173,000 TEU, increasing 2.6% from last year. Transshipment cargo volumes soared dramatically by 71.8% to 35,000 TEU.

Cargo traffic at Incheon Port was up by 14.6% to 171,000 TEU. This result came from increased trade volume with China, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Overall, the MLTM forecasts that in this year they do not expect to surpass the traffic growth acceleration of 2011, judging from foreign economic trends. < 김보람 기자 brkim@ksg.co.kr >