Despite tensions building over the US-China trade war, gKNi World Trade Indicator (WTI) results for the first half of 2018 show that worldwide TEU capacity increased by 4.1% and world trade went up by 10.2%.
Global container traffic fell slightly by 0.3%, with most of the losses coming in China and the US, both of which fell by 0.5% month-on-month (MoM) and 0.3% MoM respectively.
Japanese ports, however, saw their container throughput increase by 0.8% MoM, with Singapore and Hong Kong rising by 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.
However, the WTI suggests that trade in Asia will slow in August.
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The WTI shows that world trade registered 140.7 points at the end of July, a 0.6% increase on June 2018, with 80% of countries seeing an increase in trade.
North America was the best performing region thanks to a strengthening US dollar as foreign trade in Canada increased by 12.8%, while the US saw a rapid acceleration in imports and exports, with a 10.2% increase in trade year-on-year (YoY) in July.
India rose more than any other country with a 31.3% increase in trade YoY, easily beating its previous best of 19.4% and Sweden was the best performing European nation with an increase of 27.3%.
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