The Drewry Container Port Throughput Indices are a series of volume growth/decline indices based on monthly throughput data for a sample of over 220 ports worldwide, representing over 75% of global volumes. The base point for the indices is January 2012 = 100.

In March 2019, the global container port throughput index bounced back to a level of 130.2 points after experiencing more than 17 points decline in February. This decline was mainly due to the effects of the Chinese New Year holiday period.

However, the index is slightly lower than the January 2019 level of 130.8 points but close to six points higher than one year ago in March 2018.

Drewry Global Container Port Throughput Index

The leading region China saw the largest monthly growth of close to 30 points (27%) in March 2019. It was also around 9.1 points (7%) higher compared to March 2018.

Following China, the index figure for Asia (excl. China) was around 13.7% up (16 points) over February 2019 and close to 5.1% up versus March 2018.

North America was the region which saw the third largest monthly, as well as annual growth of 7.1% and 6.4% respectively in March 2019. However, the index was at a much lower level of 134.5 points compared to January 2019 when it reached at 142 points.

Latin America and Africa were the only regions where the throughput index experienced an annual decline (1.5% and 5.3% respectively). However both witnessed close to a 2% monthly increase in March 2019 over February.
Source: Drewry