PSA holds its throne PSA holds its throne Nick Cox Singapore's container throughput was up 5.3 per cent in 1999 to 15.94 million TEUs. While 1999's growth was the slowest for several years, Singapore maintains its position as the world's busiest container port. The figures reveal a trend towards larger vessels calling at the port, reflecting in part Singapore's increasing status as a hub port for liner services. This is the result of slow recovery only in some trades and increasing competition from other ports in the region for containerised trans-shipment cargo.
Growth appears to have slowed down somewhat on a monthly basis as the year progressed.
The weight of cargo, rather than just the volume, showed a greater increase. This reflects the fact that trade imbalances have improved somewhat, and there are now fewer empty boxes being shipped westbound from Europe or eastbound from North America to Asia, as consumer demand in the region picks up. It is estimated that Europe-Asia shipments increased 20 per cent in 1999 after a fall of 70 per cent in 1998. Total cargo handled rose 4.4 per cent to 32.6 million tonnes, after a decline in 1998 of 4.6 per cent, taking the figure to marginally below the figure for 1997. Ship arrivals rose by a marginal 0.4 per cent to 141,523 vessels.