April 11 - Industry analyst, Container Trades Statistics, has reassured the global shipping industry that the fall in global container traffic in February compared to January is less indicative of troubled global trade than a result of a 'perfect storm' o
In fact, the analyst suggest this downturn of almost 10 percent comes against a background of sustained growth that is much more optimistic.
Overall year-on-year dry and reefer traffic growth of 12.1 percent was achieved despite global container traffic falling eight percent in February.
Asian imports fell two percent in January while exports showed a monthly decrease of 25 percent, yet compared with February last year, the numbers were more encouraging: Asian imports up nine percent and exports up 15.5 percent.
February is a short month. Even in a Leap Year it remains the shortest calendar month, but experts suggest that trade tends to stagnate at this time of year because of the lunar new year holidays in Asia which fell in January.
European, Latin American, Indian, Middle East and US containerised exports were all up compared with February 2011, while the same markets also reported growing import traffic.
