News
Container movement from Asia to Europe soared 13.2% year on year to 1,367,027 TEUs in May. The Japan Maritime Center (JMC) said that Europe’s economic comeback and Asia’s robust economic performance joined forces to help it achieve a new record-high for the month in question. Container traffic on the trade was massive in the period from January to May as well, swelling 8% to 6,170,742 TEUs. Exports from Japan went up 8.2% to 52,118 TEUs in May and 5.1% to 253,331 TEUs in the five months.
Meanwhile, the JMC, which released a report on container trade between the regions from statistical data from Container Trades Statistics, Ltd. (CTS) of the U.K., added that imports of containers from Europe to Asia climbed 2% from a year earlier to 580,083 TEUs in the month under review. In the first five months, they remained nearly unchanged, inflating a slight 1.6% to 2,852,289 TEUs. Containers destined to Japan declined 6.5% to 64,895 TEUs in May and 4.9% to 326,865 TEUs from January to May.
Looking more closely at outbound containers by destination, those to all regions grew year on year, according to the JMC report. Containerized shipments to western and northern Europe surged 14.5% to 884,559 TEUs, holding a share of 64.7%. Those to the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea went up 5.6% to 235,413 TEUs in total, which accounted for 17.2% of the pie, and those to the western Mediterranean and northern Africa, up 16.1% to 247,055 TEUs, 18.1%.
