Major ports see drop in cargo handling in Nov.

SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's major ports handled less cargo in
November than a year earlier due to a global economic slump, the maritime
ministry said Wednesday.
Container traffic through Busan, the country's largest port, reached 1.01 million
twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last month, compared with 1.06 million TEUs a
month earlier.
Incheon and Gwangyang -- the nation's second- and third-largest port -- also saw
their container traffic fall 2.3 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively, according
to the ministry
"Container traffic is expected to further decline as the global economy is
shrinking at a faster than expected pace," a ministry official said.
South Korean ports had benefited from the booming Chinese economy, one of the
biggest contributors to world growth. Laptop and mobile phone makers in northern
China ship products to the western port of Incheon, which is closer than Beijing
or Shanghai, before flying them to the United States.
sam@yna.co.kr
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