The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs(MLTM) announced that the whole throughput in Korean ports in April had slightly increased totalling 111.09 million tons, which is up 0.5% compared to the same period previous year(110.54 million tons). The cumulative port traffic until April 2012 reached 442.43 tons, up 3.4% from 427.72 million tons of the same period last year.

Looking over April traffic by the ports, the port of Busan rose by 9.4% thanks to increase in export/import of timber and machinery products while the port of Gwangyang showed up 7.5% due to rise in the trade of oil and automobiles. On the other hand, the port of Inchon and the port of Pohang went through the traffic fall respectively 5.3% and 25.6% affected by decrease in export/import of sand, textile and iron.

Classifying into cargo type, machinery and automobiles experienced steep rise respectively by 18% and 27.7% whereas ore and flaming coal showed fall each by 5.2% and 16%.

Meantime, the port container throughput in April recorded 1.92 million TEUs, up 3.9%(the cumulative until April 6.1%↑) compared to 1.85 million TEUs of the same month previous year. Particularly transshipment containers jumped by 16.7% to 748,000 TEUs whereas export/import containers(1.139 million TEUs) and coastal shipping(36,000 TEUs) showed some decrease respectively by 2.7% and 7.3%. Playing the leading role in raising container traffic in Korean ports, transshipment cargo has been marking 2 digit growth rate for consecutive 14 months since March last year.

The port of Busan achieved total 1.475 million TEUs in April, up 7.7% from the last year, after exceeding 700,000 TEUs of monthly transshipment traffic for the first time in March and 716,000 TEUs in April again.

The port of Gwangyang, however, handled 175,000 TEUs, down 6.7% influenced by decrease in export to South East Asia and their biggest customer 'M' line, which transferred its transshipment weight from Gwangyang to Busan. The port of Inchon recorded 166,000 TEUs, down 8.5% owing to fall in export/import volume to China that accounts for 60% of whole traffic.

April container traffic in world top 10 ports recorded 16.33 million TEUs, up 3.6% compared with the same month previous year(15.76 million TEUs) and the port of Shanghai is ranked No.1 handling 2.7 million TEUs(2.7%↑).