SYDNEY PORTS REPORTS FIGURES OF 27.2M MASS TONNES

Figures released by Sydney Ports Corporation show that its ports handled 27.2m mass tonnes of throughput, a decrease of 1.9%, in its final year before Port Botany was leased to a private operator. ‘Mass tonnes’ includes both containerised and non-containerised trade along with empty boxes. NSW Ports, a private sector company owned largely by superannuation funds, took over Port Botany and Port Kembla on May 31 this year. Non-containerised trade at SPC was almost 12.6m mass tonnes (representing 46.3% of total trade in mass tonnes), while containerised trade was almost 13.5m mass tonnes (49.5% of total trade in mass tonnes). Total empties in mass tonnes YTD May 2012/13 was 1,144,015 mass tonnes which represents 4.2% of the total trade in mass tonnes. Box throughput in the year to May 2013 stood at 1,953,600 teu, up by 3.8% compared to the previous year, driven both by empty box exports and full import containers. Full import box volumes stood at 977,674 teu, led by north-east Asia (46.2%), Europe (16.2%) and south-eastAsia(15.3%) which combined account for 77.7% of total full container imports. Full box exports for the year to May 2013 reached almost 403,340 teu, which was down by 3.3% on the same period last year. Empty box exports for the year to May 2013 increased by 9.4% to a figure over 563,600 teu.