Container traffic falls 26% in January: report

Container traffic in January fell sharply by 25.8 per cent to 6.3 million tonnes compared with the last year due to decline in exports, according to economic think-tank Centre For Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

"This was the third consecutive month when container traffic registered a fall," according to CMIE's monthly review of the Indian economy.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port, which handles 55 per cent of the country's container traffic, reported a 29.6 per cent fall in container cargo.

Cargo traffic at major ports remained stable for the second successive month in January, CMIE said. Major ports handled 45.3 million tonnes of cargo traffic during January.

Kandla port was the busiest port in the month as it handled 5.7 million tonnes of cargo traffic. It was followed by Mormugao and Vishakhapatnam handling 5.4 million tonnes and five million tonnes, respectively.

Major ports are expected to handle 526.5 million tonnes of cargo traffic in 2008-09, up 1.4 per cent compared to year-on-year, CMIE said.

"We expect cargo traffic at major ports to grow by 5.2 per cent to 553.9 million tonnes in 2009-10," it said.