Container traffic at Indian major ports reported a strong growth of 19% at 6.7 mTEUs in fiscal year 2008. Till October 2008, container traffic registered growth at a CAGR of about 12%-20% as per the trend observed in last five years. However, due to global crisis, container trade began to crash at Indian shores too with key container terminals registering drop in throughput. JNPT has been continually showing negative y-o-y growth since Oct 2008. The compounded annual growth rate of JNPT for last five years has been around 19% and this is the first time since its inception that JNPT port has shown an annual slump. The traffic growth at Chennai port started downward movement in Dec 2008 and reached lowest in Apr 2009. Mundra, the largest private sector port, is also significantly hit by slowdown, and it exhibited maximum dip in traffic (-12.7%) in May 2009. The container traffic at smaller ports such as Tuticorin and Cochin has remained unaffected by the downturn (refer following table). Since these ports together control nearly 87% of the total container trade in India, it can be inferred that total container traffic fell by up to 3.9% on y-o-y basis in May 2009 but showed some improvement vis-?-vis previous month. Month-wise Container Traffic Variation Indian private and public container terminals together handled 7.86 mTEUs of traffic in FY09 vis-?-vis 7.62 mTEUs in FY08, registering a feeble 2.8% growth. It is feared that if the economic downturn continues, the ongoing financial year may turn out to be more disappointing. Scope of Investment in New Terminals By now India already has container terminals, either operational or in planning stage, at almost all strategic locations. DP World, holding up to 50% share of Indian containerized traffic, presently operates five terminals in India and it is developing two more in Kochi and Kolkata. If you want to know more about container industry dynamics and the opportunities this industry offers to the various players in this sector, please contact Sachin Danave (+91 98201 54485) or Ramesh Singhal (+91 98203 40418) or drop a mail at project@imaritime.com.