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South China's burgeoning port of Shenzhen continued its meteoric rise up the global container handling chart in the first quarter with throughput at the facilities jumping 42 per cent year on year to March 31.

Shenzhen, which comprises the ports of Yantian, Shekou and Chiwan, saw 1.45 million teu (20 ft equivalent units) cross its docks in the first three months with inbound containers sky-rocketing 70 per cent year on year.

Exports have been increasingly bypassing Hong Kong in favour of the cheaper mainland ports at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, but the latest numbers from Shenzhen indicate mainland buyers are also requesting shipping lines skirt the SAR's high prices.

Hutchison Whampoa's Yantian International Container Terminals looks sure to easily surpass the three-million-teu mark this year.

First-quarter throughput at the delta's only natural deep-water port jumped 45 per cent year on year to 792,000 teu.

Chiwan and Shekou, however, was a tale of two cities in the first quarter.

Shekou Container Terminals (SCT), in which China Merchants Holdings and Wharf (Holdings) have a stake, bucked the trend by posting a 17 per cent year-on-year decline in throughput, to 160,000 teu.

SCT's fall-off thus far is largely attributable to the exodus of China's flag carrier, the China Ocean Shipping Co (Cosco), in November.

Cosco opted to move its south China cargo through Chiwan Container Terminal (CCT) after the China carrier failed to convince SCT management that the weight of its business should result in lower terminal charges, according to industry sources.

The carrier moved about 250,000 teu a year through SCT last year, according to Erik Bogh Christensen, managing director of Modern Terminals, which owns a stake in the facility.

'If you subtract the loss of Cosco, we are still showing growth. It has given us the opportunity to pursue other options, which we are aggressively doing. By May or June we will return to overall growth,' Mr Christensen said.

SCT's loss has so far been CCT's gain.

The only dedicated container port in Chiwan saw throughput rise 87 per cent year on year in the first quarter, further boosted last summer when the New World Alliance opted to call at the facility.

A CCT spokesman said: 'We are a little surprised by the first-quarter result because we are only forecasting throughput of 850,00 teu this year. But we have been helped by the fact that a lot of the lines finished their contracts last year and we have seen a larger than expected jump in transshipment traffic.'

CCT has engineered the growth over three berths and has an annual capacity of one million teu, which it appears ready to test this year.

But it will commission development of a fourth berth at the end of next year and a fifth will be added in 2004.

Long hampered by a marked import-export imbalance, CCT now has an even ratio due to the recent surge of raw material imports destined for factories in Guangdong's manufacturing heartland.



SAR loses out as container trade in southern China ports skyrockets