Initial figures show that the major Yangtze ports recorded a total throughput of 1bn tons of cargo and 692,700teu for the whole of 2008, representing a growth of 9.2 per cent and 25.1 per cent year-on-year. Compared with the same figures for 2007, however, they point to a decline of growth rate of more than six percentage points and 12 percentage points respectively, indicating that the worldwide economic meltdown is drastically slowing down the growth of Yangtze cargo traffic. In fact, throughput of export-oriented cargo recorded an actual decline of 1.1 per cent to 114m tons.
Shipping prices continued to slide in December with the Yangtze Container Index shedding 0.79 per cent and the Yangtze Dry Index 1.48 per cent compared with November. The container index for the lower reaches experienced the greatest decline, falling 2.92 per cent to 963.78. The coal index element of the Yangtze Dry Index dropped by 6.75 per cent to 767.91 due to a sharp reduction in demand, particularly for coal coming out of Sichuan and Chongqing.