The number of foreign trade containers handled by the Port of Osaka in western Japan declined 2.4 percent in 2012 from a year earlier to 2.120 million 20-foot equivalent units, according to preliminary figures released by the Osaka municipal government.
But the 2012 number was still the second biggest on record. The port handled a record 2.173 million TEUs of foreign trade containers in 2011.
In 2012, about 942,000 TEUs of containers were exported, down 1.8 percent from a year earlier, and about 1.178 million TEUs of containers were imported, down 3.0 percent year-on-year.
The Port of Osaka is Japan’s fifth-largest container port. Including container trade within Japan, the Port of Osaka handled a total of 2.409 million TEUs in 2012, up 1.5 percent from 2011.
Container numbers for trade with individual countries were not given.
The Port of Osaka handled 31.054 million tons of container cargo in foreign trade in 2012, down 4.2 percent from a year earlier. Exports totaled 6.812 million tons, down 8.6 percent, while imports amounted to 24.242 million tons, down 3.0 percent.
In 2012, the Port of Osaka’s container cargo exports to the United States tumbled a whopping 73.9 percent in tonnage from a year earlier to 89,095 tons, while its container cargo imports from the U.S. also sank a staggering 31.4 percent to 735,814 tons.
In 2012, the U.S. was the Port of Osaka’s 10th-largest container export destination and the Japanese port’s seventh-biggest source of container imports.
The Journal of Commerce