r-on-year, an official of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said yesterday. The OSC's total operations reached its peak of 674,000 TEUs in 2004, decreased to 661,000 TEUs in 2005 and to 616,000 TEUs in 2006. The 151,000 TEUs from January-March 2007 represented a 5.29 percent drop from the same period of last year and future growth is not likely, the official said.
The official said the OSC, established in 1997, allows carriers to handle direct shipping between Taiwan's Kaohsiung and China's Xiamen and Fuzhou ports, but only with cargo heading for third destinations.
With other ports in China gradually improving facilities for big vessels, allowing them to ship directly to America and Europe, the importance of OSC has been reduced and its operations affected, according to the official.
Although the OSC operations decreased, the loading and unloading operations at Kaohsiung Port reached 2.45 million TEUs in the first quarter, moving up 6.99 percent year-on-year, the official said, adding that the growth rate of its transit cargo operations moved up 10.24 percent over the previous year's first quarter.
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