The Port of Hong Kong continued its negative growth slide in August, with overall throughput falling 9.8% to 1.74m teu from 1.92m teu in the previous corresponding period.

Compared to the 1.75m teu moved in July, throughput has been almost flat during the past few months.

At the main Kwai Tsing terminals, throughput fell 9.7% to 1.32m teu while at the non-Kwai Tsing terminals, the drop was even sharper, falling 10.2% to 420,000 teu from 468,000 teu in the August last year.

For the year-to-date, the downtrend at the Kwai Tsing terminals continues to gather pace, falling 11.1% to 10.65m teu, unsurprising, considering volumes have been falling since the beginning of the year. Some blips upwards in certain months at the non-Kwai Tsing terminals has meant that cumulative figures here remained almost flat, falling just 0.2% compared to the first eight months of last year and helped soften the overall drop as well with year-to-date throughput for the Port of Hong Kong falling 8,9% to 13.72m teu from the previous corresponding period.