Shanghai snares third spot in world port list


SHANGHAI has become the world's third busiest container port.


The southern Chinese port edged the Korean port of Pusan out of the third spot by virtue of handling 892,000 TEU in May, up 27.1 per cent from the same month last year.

Pusan, which was hit by an independent truckers' strike last month, handled 870,232 TEU in the same period, up 8 per cent from a year ago.

A Korea Herald report said volume at Pusan had been showing increases of between 12 and 19 per cent before the strike.

However, analysts said that the upward volumes of containers going through Shanghai would continue to increase in the wake of the Sars outbreak being controlled.

This factor, according to analysts, will see Shanghai continually outpace Pusan in the near future.

An analyst said: "The economic growth rate of China and the country's investment into logistics will push Shanghai to grow larger and faster [than Pusan].

The top two ports in the world container league are Hong Kong, which handled 18.7 million TEU last year and Singapore, which handled 17 million TEU.