Asia Pacific Stevedoring and Marine Cargo handling Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecast (2023-2028)

The size of Asia Pacific Stevedoring and Marine Cargo handling market is USD 16.2 billion in the current year and is anticipated to register a CAGR of over 5% during the forecast period

Key Highlights

• Asian Economies are experiencing a boom. They are home to the world's leading container ports, including Shanghai, Singapore, and Guangzhou. The largest container ship fleets worldwide are also registered here. Stevedoring and Marine Cargo Handling Operators load and unload cargo for waterborne transporters.
• Imports and exports account for the majority of waterborne cargo transportation, so industry performance closely mirrors Asia-Pacific trade volumes. Rising consumer spending and industrial production levels have caused the volume of goods transported through Asia-Pacific ports to increase, stimulating demand. However, the industry also contended with sharp declines in the price of crude oil, which reduced shipping rates and constrained industry fees. The industry is expected to benefit from rising trade volumes and consumer spending during forecasting.
• The Philippines was the top provider of both seafarers and officers, Indonesia took third place for ratings and fifth for officers, China was third for officers and fourth for ratings, and India was fourth for officers and fifth for ratings. The Russian Federation was the other country in the top five list. Seafarers are important sources of income for the supplying countries - for example, the Philippines earned USD 6.5 billion in 2019 from its seafarers. However, this fell by 2.8% in 2020, to USD 6.4 billion.

APAC Stevedoring & Marine Cargo Handling Market Trends

Rising Container Handling Services are driving the market

Asia Pacific exports are expected to grow at a rapid pace, helped by the sustained strong growth of intra-regional trade within Asia Pacific, as China, India, and ASEAN continue to be among the world's fastest-growing emerging markets. Over 31 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of cargo are expected to be transported across the Pacific Ocean in 2021, making Trans-Pacific routes the largest shipping zone in terms of load size. As a result of growing globalization, the volume of seaborne trade reached some 11 billion metric tons in 2020.

In 2021, China's fleet ownership amounted to approximately 244.56 million dead-weight tons. Comparatively, Malaysia's fleet ownership amounted to approximately 8.75 million dead-weight tons. China and Japan placed among the top three ship owners in the world alongside Greece, with China owning a total of 7,318 vessels and Japan owning a total of 4,029 vessels as of November 20, 2021.

Increasing Maritime Trade in the region

In 2020, Asia accounted for most of the global maritime trade. Ports in Asia were responsible for loading almost 42 percent and unloading roughly 67 percent of all goods transported by sea worldwide. Some of the biggest ports in the world are located in Asia, mainly in China. In 2020, the amount of loaded dry cargo in seaborne trade in Asia amounted to about 2.75 billion tons. In that year, a total of 4.21 billion tons of goods were loaded in seaborne trade in Asia.

Asia’s predominance in global maritime trade strengthened in 2020, as it maintained a 41% share of total goods loaded, increased its volume of goods discharged and remained the largest seafarer supply region in the world. The pandemic drove dramatic variations in Asian trade between 2019 and 2020, particularly on the Transpacific route. Reflecting the initial shock caused by the pandemic, container volumes from Asia to North America dropped by 13% between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020 but jumped by 36% in the third quarter of 2020, reflecting a surge in cargo flows to meet consumer demand.

Reflecting these large swings in trade flows, 2020 saw an increase of 2.8% on the route. By comparison, trade on the Asia-Europe route declined by 2.6% in 2020. Reflecting the resilience of the region’s containerized trade and swift rebound in exports, Asia’s container port throughput declined by a marginal 0.4% in 2020. The liner shipping connectivity of the continent also outperformed other regions, with the top five most-connected economies in the second quarter of 2021 being in Asia - China, Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region, China), Malaysia, Republic of Korea and Singapore.

APAC Stevedoring & Marine Cargo Handling Market Competitor Analysis

The Asia-Pacific Stevedoring and Marine Cargo Handling market is fragmented in nature, with a mix of global and regional players. The market is expected to grow during the forecast period due to several factors such as e-commerce, technology integration, and growing economies. The major companies in the region have adopted various modern technologies, such as warehousing management systems, automation, drone delivery, and the transportation management system, which has enabled better planning and tracking facilities, resulting in increased productivity and increased value proposition. Some of the major Players Include Hutchison Port Holdings Trust, China Merchants Port Holdings Co.Ltd, APM Terminals, A.P Moller Maersk and Others.

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