Container handling at Taiwan's major ports keeps rising

Container handling at Taiwan's three major international commercial seaports continued rising in the first nine months of this year, according to statistics released Thursday by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).Figures compiled by the Cabinet-level DGBAS show that the total number of containers handled at the three major ports of Kaohsiung, Keelung and Taichung during the January-September period reached 9.75 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), an increase of 1.7 percent over the same period of 2005.Kaohsiung Port in the south claimed the lion's share of the total, with 7.27 million TEUs, or 74.5 percent, while Keelung Port in the north handled 1.58 million TEUs, followed by Taichung Port's 903,000 TEUs.In addition, the volume of cargo handled by the three ports during the first nine months of this year also increased 2.6 percent to 527.9 million revenue tons, with Kaohsiung Port accounting for 65.8 percent.