Kingston Container Terminal (KCT) saw record volumes of transshipment cargo pass through its port facility in 2010.

According to the most recent data released by the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), 11.7 million metric tonnes of cargo was discharged and loaded at the port last year, which was 11.7 per cent higher than year-earlier levels and which surpassed peak levels in 2006 by 2.6 per cent.

The number of cargo vessels visiting Kingston Container Terminal increased year on year by 10.4 per cent in 2010, although a number of those ships were new generation mega vessels that each have a capacity of 10,062 TEU (20-foot equivalent units), which meant more volumes could be moved with fewer ships. For instance, the PAJ reported that 1,485 cargo vessels visited KCT in 2010 compared to 1,749 in 2006.

PAJ senior VP for international marketing Rosalie Donaldson said the increase in volumes was mainly attributably to increased cargo moved by Chilean shipping line Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) to the Kington Port, but said the positive performance pointed to some recovery from the recessionary environment.

Transshipment cargo actually didn’t decline in 2009, when the world was going through the worst of the economic recession, but was actually up by 3.5 per cent over year-earlier levels.

Prior to 2009, in 2007 volumes declined from 2006 peaks by 2.7 per cent before dropping 8.8 per cent in 2008 from year-earlier levels. But that fall-off surrounded drop in volumes associated with shipping line Maersk’s decision to stop using Kingston as its regional transshipment hub in late 2007.

The move was part of a reduction the Danish shipping line implemented on its weekly AC1 loop connecting ports in Japan, China and Korea with the Caribbean and Mexico.

Then, Maersk also dropped direct calls to Manzanillo in Panama and instead continued using Balboa, Panama, as a feeder hub to the Caribbean markets.

The PAJ subsequently pushed back the development of the Fort Augusta peninsula in 2009 to 2011, but blamed the recession as the cause. That plan was to include a large-scale freeport facility on the peninsula to provide assembling and duty-free shopping comparable to that which exists in Panama, and would have complemented plans to develop Port Royal as a major cruise ship destination to be interfaced with the Fort Augusta freeport.