The volume of container transshipment in Ukraine could fall by 15% in 2014, compared with 2013. Maersk Ukraine’s Country Manager Jesper Pedersen made this forecast during the "Black Sea Container Summit 2014" in Odessa, the CFTS correspondent reports.
According to him, the current decline in transshipment volume will worsen in the winter because of a shortage of energy in the country. The volume of imports is also falling because of the contraction of the Ukrainian economy. Another negative factor that contributed to the reduction in the volume of imports is the devaluation of the national currency. According to Pedersen, exports will remain at the current volume because of the low spending on the manufacturing process, salaries, etc.
At the same time, Pedersen described as a good indication the fact that no container terminal in the country has stopped operation despite the political events in Ukraine and the war in the Donbass. In general, the head of the Ukrainian division of the global shipping line noted that the medium- and long-term prospects for cargo shipping in Ukraine, particularly container shipping, are quite encouraging.
According to the organizers of the summit, the fall in the volume of container transshipment in Ukraine in the first half of 2014 was 6.5%. All the other countries in the Black Sea region recorded increases in container transshipment volumes. The increase in the region in general reached 5.1% and the total container turnover in the region was 1.363 million TEU.
