Mr Song Desing, Director of Inland Waterway Department under the Ministry of Transport, said in an interview published on 19 May that the growth of domestic container volumes would fall below 20 per cent for the first time in recent years, but it would still grow at the relatively healthy pace of 10-15 per cent for the year.

While foreign trade-related container traffic will continue to slide as a result of the current worldwide economic downturn, he said, containers for domestic trade will become the new driving force for China’s shipping market.

He cited Guangzhou as an example of this trend. The port in Guangdong province reported a domestic trade-related container throughput of 7.69m teu in 2008, up 22.4 per cent year-on-year, while the growth in foreign trade-related boxes was only 2.7 per cent. On a national level, he said, the proportion of domestic containers among container traffic across Chinese ports has risen from eight per cent, or 2.21m teu in 2001, to 24 per cent, or more than 30m teu in 2008.