DP World Limited, a global shipping terminal operator, reported that it has handled 52.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) across its global portfolio of container terminals in the first nine months of 2017, with gross container volumes growing by 10 per cent year-on-year on a reported basis and 9.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis.

The third quarter growth rates accelerating to 13.5 per cent year-on-year on a reported basis, and 13.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis, ahead of second quarter growth and Drewry Maritime’s upgraded industry estimate of 5.5 per cent throughput growth in 2017, said a statement from the company.

Global trade outlook improved significantly in 2017 with the World Trade Organization recently upgrading trade growth from 2.4 per cent to 3.6 per cent in 2017 and all three DP World regions saw third quarter growth rates accelerate even more than the second quarter of 2017, particularly our terminals in Middle East and Africa, Europe and the Americas, it said.

The UAE handled 11.6 million TEU in the first nine months of this year, growing 4.6 per cent year-on-year, it added.

At a consolidated level, our terminals handled 27.3 million TEU during the first nine months of 2017, a 24.2 per cent improvement in performance on a reported basis and up 6.2 per cent year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.

Reported consolidated volume in the Asia Pacific and Indian Subcontinent region was boosted by the consolidation of Pusan (South Korea) at the end of 2016.

DP World Group chairman and chief executive officer Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, said: “The recovery of global trade in 2017 has outperformed previous expectations and we have seen significant upward revisions by economists and industry experts.

“Benefitting from the improved trading environment and market share gains from the new shipping alliances, our global portfolio continues to deliver ahead-of-market growth and this across all three regions,” he said.

“We have seen an acceleration of growth rates in the third quarter as we employ the right strategy and the relevant deep-water capacity in the key markets,” he added.

Bin Sulayem continued: “We are pleased to see Q3 UAE volumes continue to grow despite uncertainty in the region and the performance across our terminals in the Middle East and Africa, Americas and Europe remains strong.”

“During the third quarter, we added 1.5 million TEU of new capacity in Jebel Ali (UAE) Terminal 3 (T3) and 0.5 million TEU in Prince Rupert (Canada) which provides us room for continued growth in these key markets,” he said.

“We continue to seek growth opportunities in Latin America, Africa and Indian subcontinent where there remains significant structural growth potential,” he added.

“We expect our portfolio’s volume growth to continue to outperform the market and given the encouraging performance so far, we remain well placed to meet full year 2017 market expectations,” Bin Sulayem concluded. – TradeArabia News Service