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 | Global Economy to Grow 3 Percent | |
Emerging countries doing best, Eurozone slowest, says trade insurer
April 8, 2010 - The global economy is expected to grow 3 percent this year, with emerging nations expanding more rapidly than the United States and Europe, the Paris-based trade credit insurer Coface said in a report.
"Emerging countries have nearly recovered their pre-crisis growth level, the United States shows a respectable but risky recovery and the ending of the crisis is very painstaking in Europe," said Francois David, president of Coface.
Coface said three industrialized countries - Canada, Australia and New Zealand - have returned to their pre-crisis rank of A1, the highest level in Coface's rankings, and that the United States' A2 rating has been placed under "positive watch."
The Journal of Commerce Online
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| Overcapacity to Last Years, says OOCL Chief | |
April 14, 2010 - Container industry could take three to four years to work out of glut OOIL Group Chairman CC Tung said Tuesday that it could take three to four years before the container industry works its way out of the glut of vessel capacity that hangs over the market.
"We are pleased to see that after a very tough year for the container shipping industry in 2009, demand seems to be recovering, albeit tentatively," Tung said at the christening ceremony for OOCL's latest ship on Tuesday at the Geoje Shipyard in South Korea.
"However, many uncertainties remain and the industry is still looking at a tremendous capacity overhang. It could be three to four years before the supply and demand balance reaches equilibrium."
Tung said OOCL would continue to listen to its customers' volume forecasts and "provide sufficient tonnage to cover demand."
Tung was presiding over the christening of OOCL's newest container ship Tuesday, the OOCL London, which is the 15th in the line of 16 SX-class 8,063-TEU vessels that OOCL ordered from Samsung Heavy Industries.
OOCL said it will deploy the OOCL London on the EU Loop C service in response to the recovery of demand on the Asia-Europe trade.
The EU Loop C port rotation is: Rotterdam, Hamburg, Southampton, Singapore, Shekou, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Ningbo, Shanghai, Xiamen, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shekou, Singapore, Port Kelang, Southampton and back to Rotterdam in a 70-day round trip.
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HACTL sees 30% increase in throughput
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April 13, 2010 -Hong Kong - Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals (HACTL) Limited said tonnage throughput for March and the first quarter of 2010 reached 244,087 tonnes, a year-on-year growth of 30.8%.
Tonnage throughput in the last week of March also reached an all-time high and cumulative tonnage for the first quarter of 2010 is 636,743 tonnes, HACTL said in a statement.
Export volumes showed a year-on-year growth of 35.1% and 42.9% in March and the first quarter, as volumes reached 131,349 tonnes and 338,446 tonnes respectively.
Also, a total of 63,740 tonnes of import cargo were handled in March, which represented an increase of 33.5% year-on-year. The cumulative import tonnage for the first quarter was up 42% compared to the same period last year at 174,569 tonnes.
"We are thrilled to have achieved record high weekly tonnage results. While we believe that the strong volumes reflect the consistent recovery of world economy as a result of resuming stocking needs and consumer sentiments, we will not underestimate the potential challenges ahead. Long-term prospects would very much depend on the overall global economic climate," said Lilian Chan, general manager, of marketing and customer service at HACTL.
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| China signs free trade pact with Costa Rica | |
April 9, 2010 - (BEIJING) China signed a free trade deal yesterday with Costa Rica, a country that only established diplomatic ties with the Asian giant in 2007 but which now joins a small group of nations who enjoy such an accord.
China's Commerce Ministry, in a statement on its website (www.mofcom.gov.cn), said the pact was signed in Beijing between Commerce Minister Chen Deming and his Costa Rican counterpart Marco Ruiz.
President-elect Laura Chinchilla, who takes over from Oscar Arias in early May, will need support from opposition lawmakers to pass the law and make Costa Rica the third Latin American nation to seal a trade deal with China.
'The signing of the agreement shows both countries'resolute determination to uphold openness to the outside (world) and oppose trade protectionism against the background of the global economic crisis,' the Chinese Commerce Ministry said. The pact will lift duties on 99 per cent of Costa Rican exports to China, including its high-quality coffee and other farm products. Chinese import tariffs on Costa Rican coffee will drop to zero in the next 10 years.Costa Rica is China's ninth largest trading partner in Latin America, while China is the Central American country's second largest trade partner. The two nations reached an agreement on the pact in February.
Reuters
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| Marseilles Establishes Brazil Representative |
Commercial office to boost traffic with biggest trading partner in South America
April 14, 2010 - The port of Marseilles-Fos is setting up a commercial office in Brazil to boost traffic with its biggest trading partner in South America.
Trade between France's largest port and Brazil runs at around 4.5 million tons a year out of a total 83 million tons handled in 2009.
Marseilles-Fos' newly appointed development director Dirk Becquart announced the establishment of commercial representation in Brazil during a three day trade mission last week.
Becquart led a delegation of port users and port authority staff attending an intermodal exhibition in Sao Paulo.
As the world's third largest oil port with 60 million tons annual traffic, Marseilles-Fos offers potential for Brazil's biofuels traffic, port officials said.
The French port also presented details of three new container terminals under construction -- twin facilities at Fos 2XL which are due to open in 2011 and a third terminal, Fos 4XL, to be operated by Hong Kong's Hutchison Port Holdings that is scheduled to come on stream in 2017 or 2018.
Journal of Commerce Back to the top |
| Vietnam Customs reduces container checks | |
April 13, 2010 - The Vietnamese Ministry of Finance has asked all customs departments to reduce checks on export and import containers at ports nationwide to help companies cut cost and time for customs clearance, the Saigon Times Daily reported.
Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan said that the Government had asked for streamlined customs clearance procedures.
The customs is working toward reducing the ratio of container checks at ports to 15 percent by year-end from the 2008 level of 23 percent and 17 percent last year, Tuan said.
Tuan said there was no reason to check many containers as few violations had been found and checked containers in some regional countries accounted for only 12 percent of total throughput.
He explained that after a recent fact-finding trip to some major Ho Chi Minh City ports which have the highest ratios of checked containers, the number of containers found to infringe Customs regulations was small.
At Cat Lai Port where some 45 percent of the nation's import and export containers are put through, the problematic containers make up less than 0.3 percent of those checked.
Tuan said the current time-consuming customs procedures under which containers are manually inspected had made life difficult for enterprises.
To quicken customs clearance, Cat Lai Port earlier this month installed a container scanning system worth US$9.6 million. The scanner is able to check around 100 containers a day while Cat Lai's total daily container throughput is 4,000.
Tuan said that Customs had nearly 240 procedures which they are trying to reduce by 30 percent this year.
CargonewsAsia
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| Suao free trade zone to open in May |
April 13, 2010 - The Suao port free trade zone in northeastern Taiwan is expected to begin operations in late May after the nation's top economic planning agency approved its establishment this week, Central News Agency reported.
The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said the Suao trade zone is expected to evolve into a green energy industry cluster, creating US$214.5 million in trade in the next five years.
The CEPD said the Suao free trade zone will become the nation's sixth free trade port zone, after Taipei, Keelung, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Taoyuan.
According to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Suao free trade zone will have a cargo volume of 40,300 tonnes and create 932 jobs in five years.
Cargonews Asia
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| U.S. TSCA Reform Bill Due Out Tomorrow | |
April 14, 2010 - Senator Frank Lautenberg (D., NJ) and Representative Bobby Rush (D., IL) plan to introduce a bill for overhauling the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Thursday, April 15, according to environmental groups. The bill is expected to be a "discussion draft" that would kick off the first round of formal negotiations between lawmakers' staff, EPA, industry groups and other stakeholders, sources say.
Environmental groups want any changes to the law to ensure that: industry is required to prove that chemicals are safe before including them in products, workplaces, or being released into the environment; EPA is allowed to act quickly to phase out the most dangerous chemicals from commerce, including mercury, lead and brominated flame retardants; and that EPA be allowed to consider cumulative exposure to chemicals, such as they are experienced in the real world, when evaluating chemicals for safety.
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| Containers delayed after clash near Tanjung Priok Port (Jakarta) | |
April 14, 2010 - Two people were killed on Wednesday in a clash between public order officers and local people near Mbah Priok cemetery, Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, a cemetery lawyer has said.
"Two people are dead in the tomb," Yan Juanda Saputra, Mbak Priok cemetery lawyer, said as quoted by kompas.com in Koja hospital.
He alleged public order officers to have beaten the two local people to death.
The clash began when public order officers faced opposition from local people following their efforts to evict Mbak Priok cemetery.
Local people said the graveyard was a historical site.
This has caused delay in container movement in and out of container yard and bad traffic jam therefore delay in delivery is anticipated.
The Jakarta Post & BDP International (Indonesia)
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| EPA seeks heightened scrutiny for 16 chemicals |
April 9, 2010 - The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to tighten its oversight of certain chemical substances by adding 16 chemicals to its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list. The proposal, which is part of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's campaign to provide communities with more complete information about chemicals, would represent the first expansion of the programme in more than a decade.
TRI is a public EPA database that contains information on toxic chemical releases and waste management activities reported annually by certain industries as well as federal facilities. It houses data on nearly 650 chemicals and chemical groups from about 22,000 industrial facilities in the US.
The EPA says it has reviewed the available studies and concluded that the 16 chemicals in question - which include vinyl fluoride and four substances that fall under the polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) category involving persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic chemicals - could cause cancer in humans.
Approximately 175 facilities will be affected by the proposals, estimates the EPA. They are expected to file 186 reports containing release and waste management data for the 16 chemicals being proposed for addition. 'The proposed rule will result in the expenditure of resources by both industry and the EPA,' the agency's economic analysis concludes.
Affected facilities are expected to spend time reporting the required information to the EPA through the 10-page 'Form-R', which seeks detailed information including activities and uses of the toxic chemical in question at the facility, the maximum amount of the toxic chemical on site at any time during the calendar year, on-site energy recovery processes, and on-site recycling processes. EPA also notes it will spend time processing these new forms.
Should the EPA's proposals be enacted, the agency estimates that these compliance activities will cost industry nearly $860,000 (£560,000) in the first year, and nearly $290,000 in the subsequent years. In comparison, the EPA expects to incur costs of less than $800 a year.
The chemical industry is scrutinising the EPA's plan in order to offer recommendations and input during the 60-day period when the agency will accept comments on the proposal before finalizing it.
The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates - an international trade association based in Washington, DC that represents the small and mid-sized batch chemical manufacturers - says it is still 'vetting the issue' with its member companies and trying to determine how, if at all, it effects them.
American Chemistry Council
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| Carriers return to profit on Asia-Europe trade, transpacific soon to follow, analysts say |
April 8, 2010 - SHIPPING lines are already back in the black on the Asia-Europe trade, according to analysts, as freight rates have reached levels commensurate with those in the lead up to the financial crisis.
Transpacific services are still in the red. However, this is expected to change once the annual contracts are signed in the coming months.
Estimates on the rate of increase currently range from US$400 to $600 per FEU, according to various sources.
Volumes on both the transpacific and Europe trades have held up well in the post-Chinese New Year period, according to analysts from UBS Securities.
Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
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European carriers continue to see growth in global air cargo | |
April 14, 2010 -. Lufthansa Cargo is the latest airline to report continuing growth in demand over the past few months. Its quarterly volume numbers published yesterday, reported an increase of 19.3% compared to the same period in 2009, at 391,000 tonnes. Utilisation also climbed strongly with the cargo load factor increasing by 14.2 percentage points to 71.8%.
The cargo trend indicated a general increase in business at the German airline, although passenger volumes grew by only 1.2% year-on-year, reflecting both the lesser nature of the fall in passenger volumes during the recession as well as the steepness of the recovery in air cargo.
BA World Cargo has also been reporting increasing volumes, with freight measured by cargo tonne kilometres rising by 6.4% year-on-year in March alone. British Airways suffered from a series on strikes during the period, although these do not seem to have affected adversely the quantities of cargo carried. Rather, it appears that the lower available carrying capacity simply resulted in higher load factors. British Airways passenger business did suffer falls in volume as a result of its crews' industrial action so it is difficult to compare the behaviour of the two markets.
Performance is not dissimilar at the third of the big European carriers, Air France-KLM. Here cargo volumes climbed by 2.1% in March as compared to the same period in 2009. In the intervening period Air France-KLM has stripped out 11.8% of its capacity and this has increased the load factor to 72.5%. Growth is fairly uniform across the airline's geographical markets. It is a little surprising that Air France-KLM - which has not suffered from industrial action - is expanding its volumes more slowly than its two competitors which have had labour problems.
Although all of the airlines' cargo operations continue to be cautious in their forecasts, it is becoming fairly clear that the air freight market has recovered much of its activity and that the cargo operations of many of the larger carriers are back at economic levels of utilisation.
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| Asia-Europe Box Volume Surges 56 Percent | |
Containers up 4 percent; Shipping ministry plans additional capacity
April 6, 2010 - Container traffic from Asia to Europe surged by 56 percent in February from a year ago and was close to pre-recession levels, according to the latest figures from ocean carriers.
Westbound dry and reefer shipments to Europe rose to 960,800 20-foot equivalent units from 617,920 TEUs in February 2009, the European Liner Affairs Association said.
But "we should be cautious because February 2009 was the low point in the recession in the Europe-Asia trade," the Brussels-based carrier group added.
"When we compare the 2010 figures for January and February with those for 2008, they are virtually the same," the ELAA said.
"All lines would like to forget 2009 and in doing our projections this is what we should do."
Eastbound volume from Europe to Asia climbed just over 26 percent year over year in February to 452,600 TEUs from 358,820 TEUs.
Eastbound traffic out of Europe also returned to 2008 levels in January and February and the Indian sub-continent and Middle East trades "show exactly the same pattern," the ELAA said.
"It is only the North Atlantic which is still languishing with volumes significantly below 2008," the group said.
Westbound traffic from Europe rose 13.5 percent in February from a year ago to 242,400 TEUs from 213,561 TEUs while eastbound shipments from North America climbed nearly 16 percent to 223,400 TEUs from 192,879 TEUs.
The price index for Asia-Europe shipments rose to 114 in February from 103 in January and 48 in March 2009. The eastbound index stood at 98.
By Bruce Barnard
The Journal of Commerce Online
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| Retail Sales Surge in March | |
Home goods, furniture, apparel drive past expectations in fourth consecutive gain
April 14, 2010 - Retail spending posted its fourth consecutive month of gains in March, the Commerce Department reported.
Advance seasonally adjusted estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for March were $363.2 billion, an increase of 1.6 percent from the previous month and 7.6 percent above March 2009.
Auto sales were up 7.4 percent compared with February and surged 16.1 percent compared with March last year, driving the change.
According to the National Retail Federation, which excludes automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants, retail industry sales increased 0.9 percent seasonally adjusted over February and 5.7 percent unadjusted year-over-year. Seasonal home goods, furniture and apparel were the leaders in retail stores.
"It's evident consumers were feeling much better about the economy and their finances last month," said Rosalind Wells, chief economist for NRF. "Pent up demand combined with an early Easter and warm Spring weather significantly boosted consumers' moods and retail sales."
Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and is the backbone of containerized cargo shipments from Asia.
The Global Port Tracker, published monthly by the National Retail Federation and Ben Hackett Associates, reported this month that February marked the third straight month of year-to-year increases in containerized imports, following 28 straight months of decline.
Additional year-to-year increases are forecast through summer.
Journal of Commernce
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