Sydney Ports’ trade has hit record monthly highs for the seventh month running, logging over 153,400 containers (TEU) in April 2010.
Ports and waterways minister, Paul McLeay, says this is an increase of 10.7% on the same month last year.
“The good health of the state’s economy is clearly represented by these continuing strong trade figures,” McLeay said.
“In the financial year-to-date, from July 2009 to April 2010, 1.603 million containers (TEU) have been through the port. This is up 5.4% on the same period last year.”
In addition, McLeay says exports were down in April 2010 by 4.6%, compared to the same period last year, due to the strong Australian dollar.
“However, there’s also good news - in this same period we’ve seen an increase in exports from cereals (up 9.6%), waste paper (up 7.3%) and cotton (up 259.2%).”
Full imports were up 13.4% on the same period last year, with 77,600 containers (TEU) in April.
Key commodities with the highest growth include: machinery and transport equipment; paper products; miscellaneous manufactures; and textile fabric.
McLeay says total full container imports for YTD April 2009/10 reached 792,800 TEU, up 5.9% on the corresponding period last year, indicating consumer confidence remains at a high level.
“Again, the leading import regions were dominated by East Asia (47%), South East Asia (15%) and Europe (15%), which combined accounted for 77% of total full container imports,” he said said.