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Global Quality Standard of
Containerships (PartⅡ)
Global Growth
Only the best terminals will be able to keep up with the
growing demand in the long term: Between 1986 and 2005, global
container traffic increased from about 50 million TEU to 425
million TEU. The 20 largest terminals boosted their throughput
from 126 million TEU in 2002 to 208 million TEU in 2006.
The world’s leading ports in terms of containers handled are
six Asian ports. But a look at Baltic Sea ports can be quite
revealing, as well. St. Petersburg, for example, recorded a
six fold increase between 2002 and 2006 to 1,450,000 TEU;
Kaliningrad experienced similar growth from 27,871 to 151,047
TEU. In Poland, Gdynia nearly doubled its throughput to
461,170 TEU, while Klaipeda, Lithuania tripled its figures to
231,548 TEU.
These sometimes triple-digit growth rates have been far ahead
of earlier forecasts. And the numbers are expected to continue
rising at impressive rates during the coming years. In its
ocean traffic forecast published in May 2007, the German
Federal Ministry of Transportation anticipated an increase of
the container volumes handled by German seaports from 10.8
million TEU in 2004 to 45.3 million TEU in 2025.
Clarkson Research expect international container traffic to
increase by more than 50 per cent between 2006 and 2012 to
total approximately 650 million TEU by the end of that time
period.
The driving forces in this development are the Asian nations,
especially China.
Measures such as expanding piers, adding cranes, terminal
space and staff or upgrading port management will not be
sufficient to accommodate these enormous growth rates.
Providing an infrastructure that will allow containers to move
smoothly between ports and the hinterland is just as
essential. The German ocean traffic forecast predicts that
rail traffic to and from the ports of Hamburg,
Bremen/Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven will increase
substantially between now and 2015. While a total of 349
trains served these ports each day in 2005–171 of them
hauling containers–the forecast estimates that number to
rise to as many as 633 trains per day in 2015, representing a
230 percent increase.
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