News
Nittsu Research Institute and Consulting, Inc. (NRIC) foresees that Japan will exports and imports a total of 12,273,000 TEUs of containers in fiscal 2015 (April 2015-March 2016), which would increase 2% from a year earlier, according to a revision of its business and cargo transport outlook for this fiscal year. The think tank upgraded its original forecast for outbound containers, which was made in March, by 0.1 percentage point, now anticipating that they will grow 3.2% to 5,076,000 TEUs. Meanwhile, incoming containers are foreseen to hike 1.3% to 7,197,000 TEUs, which would enjoy a year-on-year improvement for the first time in two years, although a downward adjustment of 1.5 percentage points were made.
The revised outlook, which was unveiled recently, indicates that air cargo exports from Japan will take a downward turn, declining 4.6% from the previous fiscal year to 987,700 tons this fiscal year. NRIC lowered its projection by 1.1 percentage points from its original, taking into consideration the decrease in special demand for transport by air to the U.S. West Coast due to the normalization of operations at seaports, and forecasting a reduction in freight destined to other Asian economies. Airfreight imports, on which a downward revision of 1 percentage point was made, are estimated to go down 3% to 1,050,500 tons, which would register a year-on-year loss for the fourth consecutive year.
