Throughput at the nation’s major ports rose more than 6 percent to a new high last year, as exports soared on the back of solid global demand, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Thursday last week.
Cargo handled at major international ports — such as Port of Kaohsiung, Port of Keelung, Port of Taichung and Port of Taipei — totaled about 750 million shipping tonnes last year, up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, agency data showed. Shipping tonnage is the measurement used to bill cargo handled by ports.
As the nation’s export performance improved last year, port throughput reversed a year-on-year 3.8 percent decline in 2020 and a 1.4 percent drop in 2019, the DGBAS said.
Photo: CNA
Riding a wave of strong demand for emerging technology products as well as raw materials as part of a global economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan’s exports climbed to a record high, with annual growth of almost 30 percent.
The agency said that cargo loading volume reached about 308 million shipping tonnes last year, up 5.3 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 41.1 percent of total port throughput, while cargo unloading volume was about 442 million shipping tonnes, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, making up 58.9 percent of the total.
The Port of Kaohsiung handled the largest volume of cargo last year with about 440 million shipping tonnes, which accounted for 58.6 percent of the nation’s total throughput, followed by the Port of Taichung (139 million shipping tonnes, or 18.6 percent), the Port of Taipei (89.67 million shipping tonnes, or 12 percent) and the Port of Keelung (65.46 million shipping tonnes, or 8.7 percent), the DGBAS said.
Last year, Taiwan’s major ports handled 552 million shipping tonnes of container cargo, up 6 percent from a year earlier and accounting for 73.6 percent of the total, the agency said.
Pipeline cargo, including crude oil and other liquefied items, reached 56.95 million shipping tonnes last year to make up 7.6 percent of total throughput, followed by coal (5.4 percent), iron sand (3.7 percent) and iron ore (3.1 percent).
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
In a red box factory that stands out among the drab hills of the West Bank, Chat Cola’s employees race to quench Palestinians’ thirst for local products since the Gaza war erupted last year. With packaging reminiscent of Coca-Cola’s iconic red and white aluminum cans, Chat Cola has tapped into Palestinians’ desire to shun brands perceived as too supportive of Israel. “The demand for [Chat Cola] increased since the war began because of the boycott,” owner Fahed Arar said at the factory in the occupied West Bank town of Salfit. Julien, a restaurateur in the city of Ramallah further south,
RSS