Chinese ports performed best among the world’s top 10 container ports in September with Shanghai becoming the world’s biggest for the first time with Ningbo posting its highest month-to-month increase and Guangzhou logging its highest year-on-year volume increase.

What accounts for this trend-bucking growth, say experienced observers, is the countervailing influence of Chinese domestic demand, spawned by robust stimulus spending from various levels of Chinese government.

As the export-led Chinese economy suffers from a slackening global demand, domestic consumption in China, translates into increasing imports from the Europe and America, plus demand for its own goods and services. This has led to throughput increase at major ports at the relative expense in international standing of the super ports of yesteryear.

Shanghai, for instance took Singapore’s top spot, handling 2.23 million TEU in September, making it the world’s No 1 container port. That’s 80,000 more TEU than the Lion City lifted that month. While Shanghai volumes rose 2.8 per cent month to month, Singapore’s September volumes slid 5.9 per cent from the August count.

Of course, Shanghai was still down year on year, falling 5.1 per cent from one September to another. Singapore’s drop was steeper though, with year-on-year volumes plunging 16.1 per cent. Its September year-to-date container traffic declined 17.5 per cent year on year to 18.94 million TEU against Shanghai’s decline of 13.5 per cent decline to 18.24 million TEU over the same period last year.

The biggest month-to-month improvement occurred at Ningbo, now ranked as the world’s 10^th biggest container port by the Paris-based maritime consultancy Alphaliner. Ningbo volumes increased 4.1 per cent month to month to 1.04 million TEU in September after hitting the one million TEU mark in August, accounting for a year-on-year increase of 7.8 per cent. But not all was roses as first nine months volumes fell 6.3 per cent year on year to 7.64 million TEU.

While Ningbo grossed the highest month-to-month increase among the world’s top 10 container ports, its performance was second to that of Tianjin, which witnessed a 6.6 per cent increase in volume in September over the previous month. Tianjin stands 12th in Alphaliner’s top 20 port rankings.

More intriguing is Ningbo’s domestic container traffic. It surpassed 100,000 TEU mark in September, recording a 36 per cent year-on-year increase, say port authorities. Container feeder traffic between Ningbo and Zhejiang’s Zhapu port, which increased five fold in the first nine months to 15,000 TEU points to the new factor in the number - the growth in domestic consumer demand.

Moving south, the biggest year-on-year increase in September came from the Pearl River Delta port of Guangzhou, which scored a 27.7 per cent increase. Yet even this huge improvement was not reflected in its overall volume, so Guangzhou only came in ninth place on the Alphaliner league tables. Guangzhou’s September throughput fell 0.7 per cent month to month, but saw no decline over the one million TEU it lifted in August. And from January to September, the port suffered a cumulative decline of 4.2 per cent year on year to 8.15 million TEU.