News
The world's container throughput is expected to grow from a year earlier in 2010 thanks to the recovery of the global economy, according to a report compiled recently by Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK)'s Research Group.
The Tokyo-based shipping line said in its report on the global containership service market that container shipments are projected to increase 10.9% from 2009 ? when they suffered a year-on-year decrease for the first time in their history, totaling 134 million TEUs ? to amount to 149 million TEUs, returning where they were in 2008.
The NYK report, which was released on Nov. 25, added the overall tonnage is estimated to consist of 4,989 ships of 14.192 million TEUs in total. In terms of volume, it is anticipated to swell 10%, or 1.341 million TEUs from the previous year. As such, the gap between supply and demand is prospected to decrease to as low as 1%.
The Research Group foresees the tonnage will continue to increase at an annual rate of 10% until 2012 due mainly to a rise in the number of large containerships. However, it believes the concern about oversupply will be eliminated through efforts to be made by shipping lines.
As of the end of August 2010, a total of 4,891 containerships were operated worldwide, which boasted a combined capacity of 13.841 million TEUs, a growth of 9% from a year earlier, according to the report, which is entitled ''World Containership Fleet and its Operation.''
Those that were not in operation accounted for 134 in number and 232,000 TEUs in capacity, which held a share of 1.7%. As of the beginning of 2010, 581 vessels of 1.51 million TEUs were out of service, but owing to the increase in the number of services in line with the improvement in freight movement and the so-called ''slow-steaming'' operations, they both shrank significantly.
Focusing on containerships in service, those deployed on the Asia/Europe and Asia/North America trades both gained increases of 24% in capacity, indicating that east-west routes were brisk resulting from the recovery in container traffic and the deployment of large containerships.
As for north-south trades, the Asia/Latin America trade saw a gain of 66% in capacity; the Asia/Africa trade, 25%; and the Asia/Oceania trade, 21%.
