Taiwan Area Transportation Profile 2012

We observed mixed fortunes across the big-three shipping sectors - dry bulk, liquid bulk and containers - in 2010 so far. While 2009 was the year that container shipping plummeted and dry bulk outperformed, 2010 so far has seen the opposite. In the dry bulk sector they have witnessed a playing out of the 'China effect' in reverse as there has been a notable retrenchment in Chinese imports of the two main materials involved in steel production - iron ore and coking coal - which fell in both April and May on the back of an increasingly cautious property and construction sector. This has been coupled with a growing oversupply of ships, which the authors believe will come to a head in H210. We  expect conditions in the dry bulk sector to get worse before they get better.

Shipping Report Q4 2010

Container shipping has seen year-on-year (y-o-y) recovery across the globe, yet has still not reached its pre-downturn levels of 2008 in most markets. The author’s core view is that demand for container shipping will start to fall again in H2. This is down to the sluggish recovery of the US economy and the austerity measures being implemented in Europe. The US and eurozone are the two key markets for the container shipping sector.

Container shipping is massively important to the Taiwanese shipping sector, and this is dominated by Evergreen, the fourth-largest container shipping company in the world in terms of market share. The company embarked on its massive new-build programme in the quarter, ordering the first 10 of a planned 100 new vessels to be acquired over the coming years. In other company developments, OOCL added extra calls to its routes serving Taiwan.

In ports news the port of Kaohsiung signed a letter of understanding with the Chinese port of Xiamen, which it is hoped will lead to an increase in trade between the two destinations. Also, a sixth Taiwanese free trade zone was established the port of Suao.

Throughput levels at Taiwanese ports have had mixed fortunes over the last half. Total tonnage throughput at the port of Kaohsiung does not appear to be on course to exceed that recorded during the economic downturn in 2009. Container throughput at the port should exceed last year's figure, but will still be some way off its 2007 peak.