Review of coastal port development in 2023

In 2023, the throughput of coastal ports is expected to reach 10.8 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 7.0% (of which foreign trade throughput increased by 9.4% year-on-year, and domestic trade throughput increased by 5.4% year-on-year). The growth rate reached a new high in the past ten years, higher than the original expected growth rate. [Related forecasts for port development in 2023

The first main reason is that bulk commodity import transportation achieved unexpected growth. Driven by factors such as price decline, policy liberalization, reserve growth, and export recovery, coal and crude oil have achieved rapid growth, and iron ore imports have continued to rise at a high level. The import scale of coal, iron ore, and crude oil has also reached a record high. Second, the growth of foreign trade containers has been underestimated. Since 2023, my country's ports have shown significant growth in emerging routes such as ASEAN, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia. The large number of empty containers produced in the early stage are frequently transported, which will continue to affect foreign trade routes in 2023. In addition, water-to-water transshipment and international transshipment activities continue to increase, supporting the growth of foreign trade containers at the port. In the context of exchange rate fluctuations, trade volume and foreign trade container volume growth diverged. This situation also occurred in 2015-2016, when trade volume fell by 7-8%, but the port's foreign trade container throughput increased by about 3%.

The trend throughout the year is consistent with the macroeconomy, showing the characteristics of "first good, then high, and stabilizing". In the first quarter of 2023, port production achieved a good start, with throughput increasing by 5.5% year-on-year. In the second quarter, the low base in the same period in 2022 Under the influence, the throughput growth rate rebounded to 9.1%, and the monthly growth rate gradually slowed down. The growth rate reached double digits in February, March, and April, and slowed down to 5.3% in July. In the third and fourth quarters, with the gradual implementation of a series of stabilizing growth policies, port throughput growth overall maintained a rapid growth. However, as the influence of base factors gradually weakened, the growth rate fell back, with year-on-year growth of 7.6% and 5.9% respectively (2022 Each quarter increased by 1.8%, decreased by 1.5%, increased by 2.5%, and increased by 3.6%). The monthly imbalance coefficient of port production has rebounded compared with 2022.