Coronavirus crisis credit negative for Asia-Pacific port operators: Moody's

Impact on Indian bulk handling ports unlikely due to negligible volumes linked to China

The outbreak of coronavirus in China is credit-negative for Asia-Pacific’s (APAC’s) port operators, given that it has disrupted domestic and global supply chains and has lowered discretionary consumer spending. This will lead to reduced throughput growth of APAC’s ports in 2020.

“We expect the coronavirus outbreak to have a larger negative impact on ports than that of the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), because China now has a bigger weight in the global economy and the global supply chain is more integrated,” Moody’s Investor Service said in a report.

Pertaining to container ports, extended factory shutdowns in