It is reported that India's container throughput fell 1.5% during the April to December 2009 period compared to a year ago indicating a slower pace in the decline of box movements amid a gradual recovery in the country's foreign trade.

India's exports were up 9.4% in December over November at USD 14.6 billion.

Data from the Indian Ports Association released showed that the country's 12 gateway hubs handled 5 million TEUs down from 5.1 million TEUs in the same 9 month period in 2008. Box throughputs at Jawaharlal Nehru and Chennai ports, India's 2 largest container ports, were at 3 million TEUs and 895,000 TEUs respectively, similar to the previous year.

The ports of Kolkata and Kochi posted modest gains from 336,000 TEUs to 374,000 TEUs and from 201,000 TEUs to 219,000 TEUs respectively. Tuticorin experienced a slight drop having moved 320,000 TEUs compared to 332,000 TEUs. Mumbai port suffered the biggest decline where volumes slipped 47% to 41,000 TEUs from 77,000 TEUs.

In terms of overall tonnage, the major ports handled 412 million tonnes of cargo during the 9 month period up 5% from 392 million tonnes in the corresponding period in 2008. The port of Kandla emerged as the country's number one cargo handler with traffic of 59.4 million tonnes followed by Visakhapatnam at 49.3 million tonnes and Chennai at 45.8 million tonnes.

(Sourced from www.maritime-connector.com)