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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (5098)	7/1/2005 7:17:45 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

Infrastructure glut: Indian ports puff as China chugs along ASHISH AGRAWAL ET TEAM[ SATURDAY, JULY 02, 2005 01:01:26 AM] India’s global trade, at less than $200bn, is less than a fifth of China’s $1,100bn based on ’04 figures. India is keen on bridging this gap and wants to increase its share of world merchandise trade from 0.8% to 1.5% by ’09. While the product mix and marketing capabilities to achieve this target are key challenges, another equally important one is on the infrastructure front. Ports and inter-linked roads are some of the key facilitators of trade from India as 90% of the country’s international trade is handled by ports. India’s port infrastructure is really not comparable with that of China. Shanghai’s port manages to handle more cargo than the combined capacity of all the ports in India. Shanghai has emerged as the world’s second largest port in terms of cargo handling with a turnover of 379 MT in ’04. It is just 2.3% short of the cargo handled by Singapore, the world’s biggest port. In comparison, the total cargo handled by India stood at 345 MT, a growth of 11% from the previous year. For India’s biggest port, JNPT, the figure is 32.8 MT, which is less than 10% of Shanghai. The more significant aspect is that despite being so large, Shanghai managed a 20% growth over the previous year, while JNPT could just manage a 5.2% growth despite the Indian economy doing so well. China scores over India if one compares another performance parameter. The Shanghai port achieved 15.6m TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) of containers throughput, a growth of 29%, while India as a whole handled only 4.5m TEUs although the growth rate was respectable 14%. Container traffic at Shanghai has surged by about 30% a year on a compound basis since 1996. Globally, Shanghai holds the third position in terms of number of containers handled. While the average number of ships passing through Shanghai is 1,300 in a month, it is less than 1,200 ships for India. While the turnaround time for Shanghai port is very different, depending upon cargo, tide and depth of the vessels, the same for Ningbo (the second largest port in China) is 4-12 hours. In ’00, turnaround time for Shanghai was 18 hours, which certainly would have improved to single digit on an average basis for ’04. For Indian ports, the average is 3.5 days which was close to six days a few years back. The best figure in India is for Kandla port, which achieved 26.6 hours in ’03-04, but that too is for containers handling only. And this is not all. Shanghai is busy developing the Yangshan complex, with planned investment of about 100bn yuan (about $12bn). When finished, it will include 52 berths, up from the present 15 berths, and a 32-km bridge. As far as India is concerned, currently 17 projects worth more than Rs 4,500 crore (about $1bn) are under different stages of implementation that would lead to an additional capacity of 60m tonnes. Another eight projects worth more than Rs 3,200 crore are under consideration. While commercialisation and modernisation of major existing ports is envisaged, which are expected to result in an overall improvement of performance levels, the pace of change leaves a lot to be desired. The only differentiator to India’s advantage is the welfare activities at the port. No welfare services or facilities are available at Shanghai port and the port is considered unsafe for seafarers, as per ITF seafarers’ trust survey of ports. In India, all basic welfare services are available in most of the ports. While this is laudable, it’s not what propels you to top of the charts. economictimes.indiatimes.com