Port activity in Latin America and Caribbean sluggish

The container throughput in Latin American and Caribbean ports remained sluggish in 2012. This confirmed the slowdown in the region's foreign trade over the past year, due to recession in Europe and slower growth in the US and China, according to the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac). According to the ranking of container port throughput in Latin America and the Caribbean published in Eclac’s Maritime Profile, the container port throughput in maritime terminals in 2010 grew by 15.9%, which fell to 13.9% in 2011 and 4.3% in 2012. The ranking, which Eclac compiled in conjunction with port authorities, shows the breakdown of 2012 throughput in the region's 80 main ports. Latin American and Caribbean main container ports posted growth of 7.4% in the first half of 2012, but experienced a dramatic slowdown in the second half of the year (with growth of just 0.4%). The fall in port activity in 2012 was concentrated in five countries: Argentina and Jamaica, with annual reductions of -10.5% and -35.1%, respectively, and Chile, Panama and Brazil, which recorded low annual growth of 1.2%, 3.4% and 3.6% (with a reduction in the second half of the year of -2.2%, -2.6% and -1.2% in each case). In contrast, other countries in the region appear immune to the port slowdown and maintained high growth rates despite the global recession. This applied to Peru (9.9%), Colombia (18.2%), Mexico (13.9%), Costa Rica (15.0%), Venezuela (17.6%) and the Dominican Republic (18.4%).