Ports show recovery has begun, says economist

Andrew Spurrier reports from the European Sea Ports Organisation 2009 conference in Marseilles

Andrew Spurrier, Paris - Tuesday 19 May 2009

A SENIOR European port economist has added his weight to the gathering body of expert opinion that believes the process of economic recovery has begun.
Port of Rotterdam corporate strategy adviser Peter de Langen warned, however, that the process could be long.

“It is not very probable that we are going to end up with business as usual any time soon,” he told the European Sea Ports Organisation 2009 conference in Marseilles, France.
Dr de Langen, who was presenting an assessment on the impact of the economic crisis on the European port system, opened with the bad news that throughput in the leading ports of the European Union had fallen 14% in the first quarter.

He said that dry bulk cargo and containers had been particularly hard hit, with reductions of 30% and 21%-22% respectively, while liquid bulks had held up relatively well, losing just 3% in relation to the first quarter of last year. He noted that the drop in traffic was closely related to the fall in industrial output — 20.2% in the euro zone and 18.8% over the EU as a whole.
He said it was partly attributable to destocking, which had been experienced by all EU ports.
“If that is true, then we should expect some recovery and I guess that there are some signs of that recovery appearing,” he added.

He cited the results of public confidence surveys as one sign of economic turnaround. “We are not really very confident yet, but we are more confident than we were a year ago.”
Another sign of better times ahead, he said, was the recovery in stock market indexes.
“It [the stock market] generally rises ahead of economic recovery and the stock market has been rising for the last two months,” he said.

He said that it was nevertheless vital for the European port sector that industrial production in the EU recovered, and ports could contribute to the recovery process by helping to improve efficiency in supply chains.

“We need to make sure that Europe remains a very competitive location for worldscale industry because it is industrial production that is still driving these trade flows,” he said.

Source: Lloyd's List