Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/06/2014 -- BMI maintains its cautious outlook for the Chinese port and shipping sector, highlighting that indicators continue to align to back our view of a slowdown in China's economic growth. We expect the economy to expand by 6.7% in 2014, but we caution that there are downside risks to this forecast.

After a decade-long cycle of high commodities prices partly boosted by stellar demand growth in China, the ongoing slowdown of the country's economy and rebalancing away from metal-intensive manufacturing and construction sectors raises questions over the future of China's commodities demand and import needs, with a possible negative knock-on effect on dry bulk imports in particular.

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Headline Industry Data

- 2014 Port of Shanghai tonnage throughput forecast to grow 6.3%, with container growth of 3.6% forecast for the year.
- 2014 Port of Shenzhen container throughput forecast to grow 2.4%, with average growth of 2.3% during our forecast period.
- 2014 real trade growth forecast at 7.23% - a considerable increase from 2012's estimated 2.51%.

Key Industry Trends

Shenzhen Takes Third Place: Over the first six months of 2013 the port of Shenzhen has enjoyed moderate growth - an achievement all the more remarkable given the uncertain business environment in global container shipping at present. With the eurozone estimated by BMI to have endured another year of recession in 2013, with real GDP set to contract by 0.5% over the year, a key export market for Chinese goods is not contributing to Chinese ports' volume growth as it might.

Shanghai Slowing But Still On Top: The continuation of a weak demand outlook on the major container routes that the port of Shanghai caters for, the Asia-Europe route and the transpacific, leads BMI to hold on to its 2013 forecast, which it revised down last quarter. BMI expects to see an uptick in demand in 2014, which will in turn drive up throughput growth at China's largest container port and the key export point for the majority of goods heading to Europe and the US.

Cosco Reports Loss: Chinese shipping company China Cosco Holdings Company has announced a net loss of CNY990mn (US$162mn) in H113. This represented a considerable improvement from its CNY4.87bn (US$796mn) loss in H112. China Cosco did however report a 13% decline in revenue in H113 compared with the previous year.

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