Cargo volumes at South Korea's seaports grow 8.1% in August

Volumes of cargo processed at South Korea's seaports rose significantly from a year earlier last month on growing import and export shipments, the government said Thursday. In August, the amount of cargo handled at the country's seaports came to 108.75 million tons, up 8.1 percent from the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The growth came largely from an increase in the amount of import-export cargo, which gained 7.3 percent on-year to some 89.94 million tons, according to the ministry. "The growth was led by the country's major ports in Busan, Gwangyang and Incheon, whose cargo increased 9.7 percent, 3.8 percent and 25.1 percent on-year, respectively, due to a rise in imports and exports of textiles, petrochemical products and petroleum gas," it said in a press release. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has said the country's overall exports in August had gained 7.7 percent on-year to US$46.36 billion. In terms of container cargo, the amount processed at the country's seaports surged by a near double-digit figure last month to nearly 1.92 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), up 9.7 percent from the same period last year. The Busan port, the largest seaport in South Korea, alone processed some 1.45 million TEUs, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier as the amount of transshipment cargo passing through the port jumped 12 percent on-year to 714,000 TEUs, according to the oceans ministry. Transshipment cargo refers to goods or containers processed here, often to change means of transportation, while en route to a final destination.