Dubai-based terminal operator DP World Limited saw its volumes rise on the back of a recovery of global trade in 2017.
Third quarter growth rates were at 13.5% year-on-year on a reported basis, ahead of second quarter growth and Drewry Maritime’s upgraded industry estimate of 5.5% throughput growth in 2017.
In the first nine months of the year, the company handled 52.3 million TEU across its global portfolio of container terminals, representing a growth of 10% year-on-year in gross container volumes.
Global trade outlook improved significantly in 2017 with the World Trade Organization recently upgrading trade growth from 2.4% to 3.6% in 2017 and all three DP World regions saw third quarter growth rates accelerate even more than the second quarter of 2017, particularly the company’s terminals in Middle East & Africa, Europe and the Americas. The UAE handled 11.6 million TEU in the first nine months of 2017, growing 4.6% year-on-year.
At a consolidated level, DP World’s terminals handled 27.3 million TEU during the nine-month period, a 24.2% improvement in performance on a reported basis. Reported consolidated volume in the Asia Pacific and Indian Subcontinent region was boosted by the consolidation of Pusan (South Korea) at the end of 2016.
“The recovery of global trade in 2017 has outperformed previous expectations and we have seen significant upward revisions by economists and industry experts. Benefitting from the improved trading environment and market share gains from the new shipping alliances, our global portfolio continues to deliver ahead-of-market growth and this across all three regions,” Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, DP World Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said.
“We have seen an acceleration of growth rates in the third quarter as we employ the right strategy and the relevant deep-water capacity in the key markets,” Bin Sulayem added.
During the third quarter, DP World added 1.5 million TEU of new capacity in Jebel Ali’s Terminal 3 (T3) and 0.5 million TEU in Prince Rupert, Canada.
“We expect our portfolio’s volume growth to continue to outperform the market and given the encouraging performance so far, we remain well placed to meet full year 2017 market expectations,” Bin Sulayem said.