Singapore port terminals handled 3 percent more containers in August than in July, but traffic was 14 percent lower than a year earlier, data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore showed.

The numbers show trade at the world’s busiest container port is slowly
improving as the global economy pulls out of its worst slump in decades.

Most containers passing through Singapore’s port are transshipments
between East and West, and so are a barometer of world trade.

The August figures come as Singapore’s key non-oil exports also edged
up 1.3 percent from the previous month, and fell 7.1 percent from a
year earlier — the smallest year-on-year fall in a year.

“We continue to expect trade to show a lesser pace of decline on the
back of base effects and stabilisation in external conditions,”
Deutsche Bank said in a report on Singapore trade. “The macro recovery
in Singapore will have to be export-led.”

Singapore relies on exports for about 60 percent of its economy. The
world trade downturn battered shipping firms such as Singapore’s
Neptune Orient Lines and pushed Singapore into its deepest ever
economic contraction in the first quarter.

State-owned PSA International, which runs ports around the world,
separately said container volumes at its Singapore port fell 17.2
percent in the year to August, versus the same period a year ago.

Source: Reuters

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