China''s biggest terminal operator has predicted zero growth in container throughput in 2009 for the first time ever as demand peters out in the mainland''s key export markets.
China Merchants (Holdings) Inter-national has a 34 percent share of the mainlan

d container market, which company chairman Fu Yuning said would remain at 129 million TEUs this year.
"This is the first time in history it will remain unchanged over the previous year," Fu told delegates at the Transpacific Maritime conference in downtown Los Angeles.
China is the engine of transpacific trade with the US, and its flat figures will do nothing to lift the cloud of gloom that has enveloped the ports and shipping business.
"We are in a new world of hurt," said the head of the Los Angeles board of harbour commissioners, David Freeman. "The port of LA is aware that we are now in the fight of our lives."
Los Angeles has seen its containerised imports falling by eight percent, while inbound container throughput at Long Beach was down a staggering 23 percent in January.
Neptune Orient Lines chief executive Ron Widdows was equally grave. "It is a truly horrible world. It will get worse before it gets better," he said.
How bad it will get is something shipping lines, ports and shippers are all struggling to assess. Cargo forecasts are vital for the industry, but the reference points of the past and trends of previous years are no longer valid.
"We usually look at past trends but have to continually refine the forecast," said Jeff Siewert, director of international logistics at Home Depot, the number three importer in the US.
Raymond Baker, global transportation manager at healthcare products company Covidien, said the drop off in demand made it very difficult to make accurate demand predictions. "Past trends may not be enough," he said.
With multi-million dollar assets floating around empty, the shipping lines are in a far more desperate position.
"We are seeing events play out in the world that we have not seen before. At least not in the scope of modern containerisation," said Widdows.
"There is no one on the planet who has any idea where things are going. Clearly we are in an environment where the world has not only become an uncertain place, it''s also headed south in a hurry."
The boss of the Singapore-based carrier said world trade would decline to levels not seen before.
Jonathan Beard, managing director of GHK Consulting in Hong Kong, said it was extremely difficult to predict where the industry was headed. "We are still not entirely sure if we even have hit the bottom," he said.
But amid the gloom a glimmer of light was provided by the China Merchants chairman. Fu said he had noticed that from mid-February the number of laden boxes had been increasing through his China terminals.
"It is a sign that the manufacturers have started exporting as inventory runs down," he said. "We are starting to see an upwards trend in exports."