Cargo at seaports slips 0.6% in Nov.

The amount of cargo processed at South Korea’s seaports declined 0.6 percent on-year in November due to a large drop in domestic cargo, the government said Monday.

The volume of cargo handled at the country‘s seaports came to 107.3 million tons last month, compared with 108 million tons processed in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs. The November figure also marks a significant drop from 112.89 million tons processed a month earlier.

The amount of import-export cargo gained 1.1 percent on-year to reach 86.94 million tons. Transshipment cargo, or those processed here while en route to a different final destination, also grew 23.7 percent in terms of the number of containers handled at the country’s seaports, according to the ministry.

The overall amount of cargo, however, dwindled from a year earlier, as the amount of cargo shipped domestically dropped 7.5 percent to 20.35 million tons last month from 22 million tons a year earlier.

“Export-import cargo only rose slightly due to an economic slowdown in advanced countries, but the amount of transshipment cargo grew by a double-digit number for the ninth consecutive month with shipments from global shipping companies to and from the United States and China growing significantly,” the ministry said.

The amount of cargo processed at the country‘s largest port in Busan surged 13.2 percent on-year to 1.37 million 20-foot-equivalent units. Busan is also the world’s fifth-largest port with its annual total expected to reach 15 million TEUs this year. (Yonhap News)