International ports

China’s robust container throughput growth began to slow at major mainland ports in July as a European restocking drive faded and U.S. orders were brought forward to beat potential West Coast strikes.

A new report released by The Boston Consulting Group indicates traditional views of where low-cost and high-cost manufacturing regions are located are out of date, suggesting companies should modernize their global sourcing and production networks.

The Association of Canadian Port Authorities is warning Canadian policymakers that inadequate development of port infrastructure could hinder the country from taking full advantage of its growing international trade.

Cargo is surging at northern European ports, but it’s not without consequences.

Shanghai International Port (Group) is calling for tenders as it prepares to offload a 20 percent stake in a container terminal joint venture with Hutchison Port Holdings.

Executives at Canada’s two main east coast container ports of Montreal and Halifax say a free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union will boost their volumes.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation and four Panamanian unions have accused the Panama Canal Authority of ongoing failure to provide decent pay and safe working conditions for more than 9,000 affiliated maritime workers in the canal zone.

Asia’s ports reported strengthening of container throughput in the first half as the economic recovery of the U.S. and Europe drove up consumer spending and new export orders flooded into Chinese factories.

The third set of Panama Canal locks aren't even completed yet, and yet Panama continues to talk openly about a fourth set of locks to handle even bigger ships.

Troubles in the Pacific Northwest dominated the news this week.

The port of Zeebrugge boosted container volume by 9.9 percent in the first half of the year, easily outpacing growth at larger rivals in the Le Havre-Hamburg range.

Manila’s container congestion saga is defying all efforts to resolve it. The Philippines Bureau of Customs estimates that 75,000 mostly empty 20-foot containers are waiting to be collected in the choked port.

The port of Rotterdam today announced a series of measures to eliminate congestion at two large container terminals and free up quay and labor capacity for oceangoing vessels.

The Panama Canal Authority and the consortium hired to build a third set of locks have amended their construction contract to reflect a March settlement of a payment dispute that interrupted work for two weeks.

Port Metro Vancouver’s penalty system for terminals is cutting truck turn times and drawing attention from other North American ports struggling with drayage challenges. And congestion seen earlier this year at Rotterdam has continued, prompting diversions and surcharges, and the congestion is spreading to other ports in the North Europe range.

Terminal operators are responding to the tsunami of large vessels that have descended upon global ports by dramatically ramping up their productivity in turning the mega-ships. But the gains realized are only a taste of what will be necessary when the next generation of vessels arrive on the scene by 2018, industry analysts say.

Hapag-Lloyd announced it is temporarily diverting vessels deployed on one of its Europe-Asia services from Rotterdam to Antwerp as congestion worsens at Europe’s biggest container port as the peak shipping season gathers speed.

China will remain the clear leader in U.S. footwear imports even as Vietnam and other countries nibble away at its market share, according to a new forecast by the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.

Indian Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari said the government is working on plans to augment overall tonnage capacity at major ports from the current 800 million tons to 1.6 billion tons over the next five years.

Facing growing port congestion, the Port of Hamburg is implementing a far-reaching plan to better manage truck traffic of containers moving in and out of its terminals.

Last winter, congestion at Port Metro Vancouver was so bad that it triggered a month-long strike by hundreds of truck drivers. Four months later, turn times are averaging less than an hour.

Worsening congestion at the port of Rotterdam has prompted two short sea and feeder shipping lines to impose surcharges of around $100 per container.

Malaysia’s Westports Holdings turned in an impressive first-half performance, with throughput rising 13 percent year-over-year and strong growth across all trade lanes.

The Port of Barcelona's container volume rose 7 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2014.

The first gates of the Panama Canal expansion program have been moved to the new locks complex on the Atlantic side, marking another milestone in the $5.25 billion project.

The Netherlands’ Port of Rotterdam Authority announced increased profit and revenue for the first half of the year...

Rising labor costs continue to drive factories out of the Pearl River Delta...

The Port of Antwerp plans to build a bunkering station to encourage use of liquefied natural gas by self-propelled river barges.

The Port of Rotterdam’s container traffic rose 1.9 percent year-over-year in the first half, driven by higher volumes on Asian and North American routes, but growth again trailed that of neighboring Antwerp.

India’s largest port infrastructure developer, Adani Ports, has received government approval for its "special economic zone" project at the Port of Mundra,

The port of Antwerp’s container traffic rose around 5 percent in the second quarter of the year, more than five times the increase in the first three months...

The port of Singapore grew its container throughput 4.1 percent in June, compared to the same month last year, handling 2.84 million 20-foot containers, according to preliminary figures from the city-state port authority.

The Indian government has announced plans to award 16 new public-private partnership port development contracts at major ports during the current fiscal year (2014-15), which ends on March 31, 2015.

The volume of containers shipped via major ports in India climbed nearly 4 percent year-over-year from April to June, the first quarter of fiscal year 2014-15, showing signs of a slight turnaround in global trade.

Canadian National Railway will issue equipment allocations to ocean carrier customers shipping through Port Metro Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert as it struggles to cope with what it called an unexpected surge in U.S.-bound cargo linked to the July 1 expiration of the U.S. West Coast longshore contract.

The Panama Canal Authority, which earlier this year dismissed the possibility of an alternate canal through Nicaragua, had a more cautious reaction this week following the Nicaraguan government’s approval of plans by a Hong Kong-based company for the proposed $40 billion canal.

The European Union has opened an in-depth investigation to determine whether tax breaks for publicly owned Dutch ports, including Rotterdam, breach its state aid rules.

China’s slowly but steadily improving exports trade continues to push container traffic through the country’s top ports, with June throughput growing 7.8 percent year-over-year and fueling optimism that the foreign trade recovery will extend into the second half of the year.

Roughly 400 unionized truck drivers at Port Metro Vancouver are threatening to strike, alleging that they are being paid less than the minimum rate established by the government, CBC.ca reports.