Shenzhen's container throughput dropped 2.4 per cent year on year to 1.88 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last month in yet another sign of the mainland's weakening trade.
This is the first year-on-year decline in container throughput for the mainland's second-busiest and the world's fourth-busiest port since January and the first monthly decline since February. In comparison, its container throughput rose 3.4 per cent year on year in May and 5.6 per cent in April.
'The June figures are not good for Shenzhen, indicating trade is getting worse,' Sunny Ho Lap-kee, executive director of the Hong Kong Shippers' Council, said.
Thousands of Hong Kong-owned factories in the Pearl River Delta, a region long seen as the factory to the world, export their goods through the ports of Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Ho said that at a meeting two weeks ago, Hong Kong exporters said they were facing a very difficult environment.
'The situation is more difficult than the port figures of Hong Kong and Shenzhen suggest. They found it hard to believe that Hong Kong and Shenzhen ports had positive growth in the first five months of this year, as their business had decreased significantly,' he said.