Singapore earned the top spot, a position it has held
for all 13 years of the report’s history. With London slipping the third
place, Hong Kong and Dubai rounded
out the index’s top five cities.
Ningbo-Zhoushan overtook Rotterdam to
become the sixth-highest-ranked shipping centre, while New York and New Jersey
jumped up two places to eighth, overtaking Athens and Hamburg.
There were no new entrants to the top 20.
Analyzing Shanghai’s ascendancy in the rankings, the report
noted the city stood in seventh place in 2014 and has risen steadily since.
Shanghai is home to the world’s busiest container port, which recorded strong
growth in 2025, including at the world’s largest automated container terminal.
The opening of Maersk’s flagship
logistics centre in Shanghai’s Lin-gang Special Area further strengthened the
clusters’ case, as did the launch of The North Bund International Legal Service
Port, a new international ship inspection operations team from China
Classification Society, and the arrival of representative offices for both
the International
Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and London P&I Club.
The Index judges shipping centres based on three main weighted
criteria: port inputs account for 20% of the total, business services 50%, and
general environment inputs — which covers government transparency, customs
tariffs, logistics performance, and the extent of e-government and
administration — making up the remaining 30% of the score.
The report said Singapore’s grip on the top spot showed no
signs of loosening, as container volume growth at its port outpaced Shanghai’s
to remain the world’s second-busiest container port. Singapore’s bunkering
industry also broke records in 2025 to remain the world’s largest bunkering
destination crown with sales of 56.77 million tons. The report noted an
increase in LNG deliveries and the issuing of bunkering licenses
for methanol and groundwork for future ammonia developments.
Tonnage under the Singapore Registry of Ships rose 27%
on-year to 137.46m gt and some 35 companies opened or expanded operations in
the city in 2025.
“Singapore’s challenge heading into the latter part of the
decade is less about defending its position as a leading shipping hub but about
continuing to distinguish itself from other leading maritime cities across
Asia. On the evidence of 2025, it is doing exactly that,” said the report.
The only shipping centre to gain two places this year was
New York & New Jersey, which the report noted as home of private equity,
law firms, brokerage firms, financial institutions and the New York Stock
Exchange. The port recorded its third-busiest year ever, and the Xinhua-Baltic
analysis highlighted long-term plans at the port, including completion of a
harbour deepening project and the signing of two lease extensions of more than
30 years each.
The port’s long-term ambition is clear, as The port’s Master
Plan 2050 projects cargo volumes through the port complex could double or
triple by the middle of the century.
No comments:
Post a Comment