Brisbane, Sydney climb global port rankings

The annual global box port rankings, published this week by Cargo Systems, showed that Brisbane and Sydney were Australia's big movers.

Based on 2008 calendar year results, the rankings confirm Melbourne as Australia's biggest container port with throughput of 2.3m teu for the year although the port slipped one place to 52nd in the world.

A separate ranking system last year by Container Management had placed Melbourne in the top 50.

Port Botany climbed eight places to 63rd overall with 1.8m teu, while Brisbane improved four places to 99th with 952,000 teu.

Auckland remains New Zealand's biggest box port, moving 868,000 teu which places it in 105th place.

The rankings for the top five ports remained unchanged, with Singapore holding top spot with 29.9m teu, ahead of Shanghai (28m teu).

Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Busan maintained their top five rankings in the list, while China's Guangzhou port jumped five places to seventh with 11m teu just behind Dubai.

Kaohsiung and Hamburg both fell out of the top 10.