Maersk to downsize operations in Kaohsiung

Maersk to downsize operations in Kaohsiung    Kaohsiung is not having the greatest of years.
   Earlier in 2008, port officials were found to have fudged throughput statistics in 2007 to meet government volume targets. Now Maersk, the global liner carrier and terminal operator, has decided to pull half its volume out of the Taiwanese port.
   Reports in Asia Wednesday indicated that Maersk would not be renewing its lease on two of the four berths it operates in Kaohsiung when the lease expires in October. The two berths have capacity for 900,000 TEUs annually.
   On Thursday, Kaohsiung harbor officials confirmed the reports, but said they were hopeful of moving Maersk to another berth in the port with capacity for 500,000 TEUs. Whether the Danish container giant will take Kaohsiung up on that offer is not clear. Maersk has increasingly been spreading its investments in the region, including to the Port of Xiamen, on the Chinese mainland across the Taiwan Strait from Kaohsiung.
   Huang Kuo Ying, deputy director general of the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau, told Reuters that Maersk volume had already slipped in 2007 as it migrated some volume over to Xiamen. Also clouding the future for Kaohsiung is Busan. Maersk has made a huge terminal investment in South Korea’s biggest port — specifically Busan Newport. Busan and Kaohsiung compete as transshipment terminals in East Asia.
   For the first half of 2008, throughput growth at Kaohsiung was 3 percent, reported the China Daily. The port is the eighth biggest in the world, but has seen its prominence slide as mainland Chinese ports have grown unabated.