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Pearl River Delta boxes up 12.8pc, trumping Yangtze River Delta's 1.2pc

FOREIGN container throughput at Pearl River Delta ports rose by 12.8 per cent in November compared to the same month last year, with Shenzhen and Guangzhou leading the way.

Foreign box traffic at Shenzhen increased by 13.2 per cent in November and Guangzhou saw growth for the month at 11.4 per cent.

By contrast, Shanghai's international volumes were down 1.9 per cent, Tianjin was up 3.5 per cent, Dalian rose by 0.4 per cent and Ningbo was up 8.1 per cent.

Last month, overall international volumes at Bohai Rim ports rose by two per cent and at the Yangtze River Delta they were up 1.2 per cent, far below the double-digit gains at the Pearl River Delta.

"We believe more traffic was diverted from the nearby Hong Kong port," Citi said in its report.

Hong Kong has experienced a difficult year battling port congestion and a raft of late ship arrivals.

Other Pearl River Delta ports continued to lag other China regions this year, growing 5.2 per cent year to date versus 5.7 per cent at the Bohai Rim and 7.4 per cent at the Yangtze River Delta ports, said Citi.

Congestion reached a crisis stage earlier in the autumn when terminals urgently called on the government to make land available for containers and to free up berth space for barges transshipping cargo to and from the Pearl River Delta region.