Throughput at the port of Hong Kong plunged in March falling 13.5% to 1.63m teu from 1.88m teu in the previous corresponding period.

The drop could already be seen from the earlier released figures of the individual terminal operators last week and the impact was the greatest at the main Kwai Tsing terminals which saw volumes fall 16.2% to 1.29m teu in March.This is the third consecutive month of declines and has resulted in an overall drop for the first quarter of 8.1% to 4.88m teu.

While the March throughput figure was an increase from the 1.43m teu moved overall in February, this was to be expected with the usual Lunar New Year slowdown during that month.