India's sea cargo tonnage near pre-pandemic levels

The export figures for Dece­mber 2021 at $37.29 billion, the highest ever for any month and an increase of 37.0% over December 2020 and 37.55% over December 2019, are very heartening. However, the figures for tonnage of cargo handled at the sea ports that acc­ount for over 90% of imp­orts and exports in volume terms are not that encouraging.
 
During April-December 2021, the exports and imports showed, in value terms, an increase of 48.85% and 69.27% respectively over the April-December 2020 period. Howe­ver, the cargo handled at India’s dozen State-owned ma­jor ports rose only by 10.74% during that period. The figures for the cargo handled at the non-major ports are not yet available. The breakup of imports and export cargo volumes is also not yet available for the relevant period.

 
The available cargo volume figures for all sea ports i.e. all major and non-major ports show that in April-November 2019, they handled 696.12 million tonnes. This figure fell to 642.86 million tonnes in April-November 2020 and rose to 694.89 million tonnes in April-November 2021. This shows that the tonnage handled at the ports in April-November 2021 is almost the same as at the pre-pandemic levels. These cargo volume figures suggest that the higher export and import figures in value terms may have more to do with higher commodity prices and steep increase in container rentals and freight rates.
 

Even so, reaching the pre-pandemic levels in exports and imports, even in volume ter­ms, is no mean achievem­ent. Exporters coped with supply side disruptions, second wave of the pandemic, intermittent lockdowns, container shortages, blank sailings, high container rentals, soaring freight rates, logistic bottlenecks and so on to ensure that their customers abroad are served well enough. The Merchandise Ex­p­orts fro­m India Scheme (ME­IS) ended in December 2020. The utility for filing the MEIS applications was disenabled till September 2021 and thereafter, the MEIS claims were rest­ricted to the extent of allocations from the Finance Min­istry. Even now, the allocations are not sufficient to allow the claims for exports made during October-December 2020.  The Refund of Duties and Taxes on Export Products scheme was launched in January 2021 but the rates were announced and the utility for getting the duty credits was made available only in September 2021. Still, the expo­rters showed enough resi­lience and performed creditably.

 

On their part, the buyers were willing to put up with delays and higher freight charges and take the supplies not only for meeting the soaring demands from their customers but also for building up enough inventories to ensure that any disruptions in supply chains do not result in stock-out situations. The easy monetary and fiscal policies, especially in the developed countries helped revive the global demand for goods.
 
Through the difficult days, the service providers in the logistics industry, such as the truck drivers, warehouse and container depot operators, customs brokers and the officers and other staff at the Customs helped in easier movement of cargo. Their contributions usu­ally go unnoticed as also the contributions of the other government and private agencies facilitating export of goods.  The impressive export performance came at a time when the domestic demand was rather tepid. Hopefully, the Budget 2022 will spur investment in the economy that will create more jobs and boost domestic consumption.

email:tncrajagopalan@gmail.com