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Durban port container traffic plunges
2009/3/25
Volumes at the Durban container terminal dropped 15.6 percent from December to last month compared with the same period last year, Solly Letsoalo, chief operating officer at Transnet Port Terminals said.
As a result, turnover for the year ending this month is expected to be lower than budgeted, Business Day South Africa reported.
To make matters worse, the volume decline includes transhipments, which have grown, masking the real effect of the global crisis.
"If you take them out of the equation then volumes actually declined about 29 percent," he said.
The effect was also cushioned by an overall container growth rate of about six percent from April-October last year, but import/export volumes plunged 18 percent between November and December.
"The real effects of the decline will be felt in the 2010 financial year, especially if the global economy doesn''t pick up during the year," Letsoalo said.
Letsoalo said Transnet Port Terminals was banking on a recovery within two years but that this would depend on whether the economies of South Africa''s main trading partners improved. He estimated that the global downtown would last between six months and two years.
Christelle Grobler, an economist with the Bureau for Economic Research, said the economic outlook remained extremely uncertain, with projections for world economic growth for this and next year continuously revised downwards.
"Our forecast for the South African economy currently does not see any material recovery this year, with economic growth picking up only slightly in 2010," she said. "Our latest estimate for real gross domestic product growth for 2010 is about 2.7 percent, revised downwards from above three percent levels forecast in January."
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2009/3/26