The Port of Shanghai's container throughput increased by three percent in September to 2.23 million TEU, finally overtaking the Port of Singapore, which handled 2.15 million TEU.
But year-to-date, Singapore handled 18.94 million TEU versus 18.24 million TEU for Shanghai.
It has often been assumed that Shanghai was the de facto number one container port in the world because of Singapore's transshipment volume gives it an artificially edge because so many of its boxes are counted twice.
Typically, when a box moves from ship to shore or shore to ship, it is counted, presumably having arrived or departed the port where it was leaving or arriving for the first time.
But in the case of transhipments, boxes arrive at a transfer port such as Singapore, where they are counted once when they arrive and again when they leave on another ship for their final destination.
If one adjusts for this phenomenon, Shanghai has already been the largest container port in the world for a number years as few of its boxes are of the double-counted transhipment type, thus arriving or departing by sea once, not twice.
Chinese ports recorded their highest monthly throughput this year in September while most major ports outside of China suffered a fall in box traffic during the month compared to August.
Apart from Shanghai, the remainder of the top five container ports worldwide suffered volume declines in September.
Total container throughput at the top eleven Chinese box ports, including Hong Kong, amounted to 10.89 million TEU in September, which is said to be the highest container traffic volume recorded so far this year.
Aside from Shanghai, the increase is reported to be led by the ports of Ningbo, Qingdao and Tianjin.
Tracey Jia
