Australia: Trade through the Port of Melbourne for calendar year 2010 surged to record heights with stronger than expected growth in the port’s core trades of containers and new motor vehicles, Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) announced today.
Overall trade of 78.8 million revenue tonnes increased 13.2 percent on calendar year 2009 and was boosted by a record container throughput of 2.348 million TEU increasing by 12.6 percent over the same period.
The platform for the strong trade performance was set in the first half of the calendar year when container volumes grew at an average monthly rate of 15.8 percent during the six months from January to June - the strongest ever result for that period.
In the second half of the year, the Port of Melbourne recorded four separate months where container throughput exceeded 200,000TEU, including a national record of over 217,000TEU in October.
The new motor vehicle trade also surged to record levels increasing by 34.7 percent on calendar year 2009 to a total 398,000 units.
