The Port of Busan missed its target volume for 2015 by a slight margin as the South Korean international maritime hub felt the impact of sluggish global commerce, according to the Busan Port Authority (BPA).
The port processed about 19.45 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers last year, falling short by 50,000 containers of its goal of 19.5 million cargoes. The authority pinned the results on the slowdown of global and domestic economies.
Container throughput in 2015 was, however, an increase of 4% compared to the 18.68 million TEUs posted the preceding year, said BPA in a statement.
Moreover, the terminal logged record growth in transshipment cargo by handling 10.08 million transshipped containers, accounting for 52% of total cargo lifted in 2015. This, said BPA, is the first time the port hit the 10 millionth mark for transshipments.
Last year was also only the second year after 2014 that transshipment volumes accounted for more than 50% of overall throughput, indicating the gradual rise of Busan as an important transshipment facility in Northeast Asia.
