The biggest ports of Europe are not big enough to house the growing container vessel imports from Asia. So to cope up with the ‘space crunch’, many ports are raising their terminal capacity.
Serious congestion issues are troubling the biggest European ports due to their failure to expand fast enough to accommodate burgeoning imports of container vessels from Asia.
Industry officials are of the view that the only solution for growing chaos at ports is to upgrade the terminal capacity to handle the growing imports of manufactured goods from China. However, the expansion work is not going fast enough to match pace with the trade flow.
The data from CLECAT (a European association for transport, logistic, and customs services) reveals that container shipping is projected to rise 7.8% annually during the period spanning from 2005 to 2011, while the port capacity of Europe is anticipated to hike by just 4.2%.
Due to high congestion, port of Rotterdam (largest in Europe), Hamburg in Germany (second largest port in Europe) and Southampton and Felixstowe, Britain, had to return container vessels in 2007, said industry officials, according to news reported by Cargonewsasia on June 15, 2007.
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