Abstract
According to a story in Port World in late July, the Port of Rotterdam
registered a nearly 8% year-on-year
(y-o-y) decline in ship traffic to
16,655 ships from January to June 2009 as compared with 18,223 ships in
the corresponding period of 2008. The Dutch port recently reported a slump of
more than 13% y-o-y in
total cargo throughput in the same period. In terms
of containers handled, the decline in H109 was 15%,
to 4.6mn twenty-foot
equivalent units (TEUs). The port' s export and import volumes dropped by 4.6%
yo-
y and 16.6% y-o-y, respectively, to 54mn tonnes and 131mn tonnes in
H109. Rotterdam is Europe' s
largest container port, but it faces growing
competition from Hamburg and Antwerp. Industry observers
say the
throughput decline is mainly due to reduced ship bunkering activities at the
port.
Overall, and bearing in mind the significant impact of the current
recession, BMI concludes in the latest
Netherlands Freight Transport
Report that freight traffic across all modes will rise by an annual
average
of 0.4% in the 2009-2013 forecast period. This will be
fractionally below the growth of the wider
economy, and down from 3.5% in
the preceding five years. Slower economic growth is the key driver of
the
slowdown in the freight sector. According to our latest estimates, transport
and communications GDP
rose by 2.6% in 2008, 0.7 of a percentage point
ahead of GDP. The total value of transport and
communications GDP will
rise to US$71bn in nominal terms by 2013, representing 9.0% of the
Netherlands’ GDP. The transport and communications sector employed
819,000 people, or 6.1% of the
labour force, in 2007. We see that figure
staying virtually constant at around 817,000 by 2013.
Our overall forecast
for freight carried in the Netherlands is for it to be broadly on a par with
the wider
economy based on a mature industry, good infrastructure, a
slower economic growth rate, and the
country’s openness to foreign
trade. We expect the best performing sector to be airfreight, which, with
annual average growth of 0.9%, will come through another period of relative
turbulence in the sector,
caused by the European-wide recession. We
believe Dutch aviation, and the Air France-KLM alliance in
particular,
will ride out the storm. It will be followed by rail freight, where we are
forecasting growth of
0.6% per annum, with resilience coming from recent
investments – in particular the opening of a new
freight line to
Germany. Pipeline freight will grow by 0.5% throughout the forecast period, as
will road
haulage. We think sea freight will be hardest hit by the current
recession, with growth down to an average
of 0.3%. Inland water transport
will also experience low growth of 0.2% per annum.
| 
View Cart
