Melbourne ranks in top 50 ports

The Port of Melbourne has been ranked among the world’s leading container ports, reaching top 50 status in international rankings released by Container Management magazine.

The accolade comes after Melbourne became the first port in Australia to reach the two million container milestone in 2007.

“The top 50 ranking shows Melbourne is a world-class operation – ahead of Sydney (ranked 70) and Brisbane (ranked 100),” says Victoria premier John Brumby.

“Excluding Sydney, the Port of Melbourne handles the same amount of containers as the combined total of all the other ports in Australia including Brisbane, Fremantle and Adelaide.”

“Overall, the port handles around 36% of the nation’s container trade – which amounts to around 6,500 containers on average each day.”

He adds that the Port of Melbourne is the hub for Victoria’s freight and logistics industry which generates employment for tens of thousands of Victorians and handles an average of AUD90 million in exports every day.

For the 2007 calendar year, container throughput grew to 2.188 million containers.

As a result, Melbourne’s ranking increased from 54 to 50 in the 2007 ranking.

In the financial year to June 2008, total container throughput grew 7.8% to 2.256 million containers, representing the port’s seventeenth consecutive year of positive container growth.

Singapore Port Handles 1B Tons

The Port Authority of Singapore has announced that it handled a billion gross tons of maritime cargo earlier this year than ever before The port reached the mark on Aug. 14 with the arrival of the 50,243-ton container ship APL Australia. The cargo mark was achieved ahead of the previous early mark set in September 2007. Volume totaled 1.459 billion gross tons in 2007; 1.315 billion gross tons in 2006; 1.152 billion gross tons in 2005, and 1.042 billion gross tons in 2004.

US Set to Lose Place as World’s Largest Manufacturer

Study from Global Insight Says China to be Number 1 in 2009. Rapid Chinese growth, combined with US slowdown is expected to bring change to the top spot earlier than expected and this gap is expected to continue to widen. For 2008, Global Insight says the US will produce 16.9% of global value-added factory output, with China at 15%. In 2009, however, China’s global share should rise to 17%, with the US having a 16% share. The numbers do not reflect absolute levels of manufacturing output, but rather relative ones. So, the US has been losing global manufacturing market share even as its own factory volumes rise, but not nearly as quickly as China’s growth.