Container traffic in European ports is growing, but there is bad news.

Container turnover of eight of the ten largest container ports in Europe, which published their statistics for the first half of 2019, grew by an average of 8.1%, TASS reports. The three leaders of the European market for container handling remained unchanged: Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg. They increased their turnover by 6.3% on average. At the same time, the top 10 Mediterranean ports increased their volumes by more than 11% on average. This growth was largely driven by an increase in traffic through Piraeus by almost 24%. This fact confirms the experts' thesis that Chinese investments in European ports change the flow of goods: cargo goes wherever China comes. The container turnover of the seaports of the Russian Federation for 8 months of this year increased by 5.4%, according to the data of Rosmorrechflot. The ports of the Baltic basin, which account for about half of the total sea container flow in Russia, have increased container handling by 6.6%. *** Along with the positive statistics of European container turnover, there was a bad signal for the global container transport market: demand for intra-Asian routes has slowed down, which, according to the BIMCO shipowners association, warns of impending problems in the entire industry. BIMCO notes that the dynamics of demand on intra-Asian container transport routes is an indicator of what will happen next on long-haul routes, since the volumes here indicate the state of supply chains in the region and, therefore, what finished goods Asia will export in the near future. Thus, based on the fact that the demand for intra-Asian transport in the first 7 months of the year grew by only 0.8%, the association predicts a slowdown in demand in the global market further this year. BIMCO's warning is consistent with the expectations in the world community of the development of global crisis trends, further fueled by the US-China trade war. GDP growth is declining in almost all regions of the world, which inevitably has a negative effect on world trade.

Source: RZD Partner, tks.ru