Panama Canal maintains steady flow of box traffic

 
While throughput plunged at ports in Asia and the US in the final months of 2008 into 2009, the Panama Canal Authority has managed to escape such drastic falls.
Nearly 3.12m teu transited the canal in the fourth quarter of 2008, down slightly on the previous quarter and comparable with the same period in 2007. Drewry Shipping Consultants said that the number of all-water container shipping services from Asia to the east coast of the US via the Panama Canal had fallen from 19 a year ago to 17 today.
“The transpacific trade [which covers this route] was already in decline before this time [in 2007]” Drewry’s Neil Dekker said.
“It’s not like the Asia to Europe container trade, which really began to fall off last year. I am slightly surprised that it is not a little bit more, but the trade probably had already declined by a fair bit.”
Loaded inbound containers from Asia to the west coast US port of Long Beach have fallen by 35% so far this year.
Total westbound volumes on the Asia-to-Europe container trade have collapsed since October.
Data for the Panama Canal also showed that the number of ocean-going ship transits has remained steady, at 3,376 ships in the first quarter of 2009.
That compared to 3,208 in the fourth quarter of 2008, 3,157 in the third quarter, 3,347 during the busiest second quarter period and 3,414 in the first quarter of 2008.