AUSTRALASIAN CONTAINER trades hit 7,114,800 TEU in 2024, according to London-based Container Trade Statistics’ provisional figures.
This compares to 6,544,500 TEU in 2023 and 6,596,900 TEU in 2022.
Unusually, growth in import and exports trades was almost identical in 2024, at 9.4% and 9.3% respectively but the total growth of 8.7% was held back by a 4% contraction in inter-Australasian trades.
Australasian containerised imports rose 353,200 TEU, with growth in four corridors – Far East (12% – noting CTS counts North & East Asia, and South East Asia, as a single trade), Europe (2.2%), Middle East/Indian Sub-Continent (11.9%) and Latin America (18.5%). Two tradelanes fell, most notably North America by 1.4%. Sub-Saharan African fell 10.1% but that trade accounted for only 18,700 TEU in 2024.
Australasian containerised exports grew by 229,800 TEU to 2.69 million TEU with all routes posting significant gains, although the Far East was the slowest – albeit by far the strongest at 1,857,100 TEU, up from 1,756,600 TEU in 2023, thus rising 5.7%.
Exports to Europe were up 7%, to North America 11.9%, to Middle East/ISC an outstanding 33.7%, to Sub Saharan Africa by 7.9% and to Latin America 15.6%.
Looking at the fourth quarter of 2024 CTS found the all-in rate levels from the rest of the world to Australasia for the Far East and Middle East/Indian subcontinent were much higher than in the same months of the previous year. In the other corridor the results were mixed, with reductions of close to 25% in the North America and Latin America trades. CTS’s all-in rate levels from Australasia to the rest of the world for Q4 2024 were generally mixed, with some growth on the Europe, Middle East, Latins America and sub-Saharan Africa routes, but substantial declines on the Far East, North America and Intra-Australasia trades.
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