Container volumes in and out of the country in the first six months of 2015 increased by around 7%.
That's according to the Maersk Trade Report - South Africa for the Second Quarter of 2015 - which noted that last year container volumes had declined by 5% for the first six months of 2014.
The report noted that first half growth was in stark contrast to current poor economic fundamentals, low consumer confidence and slow GDP growth.
Most of the growth in the first half of the year can be attributed to imports which have risen by 11% year-over-year while exports grew by about 2%.
Algoa FM News spoke to Dirk Hoffman, the Managing Director of Safmarine, a Maersk Group company.
"Although it seems very good from a container shipping perspective we've seen that the imports are largely driven by consumer goods, clothing and household goods, but perhaps we should say this is against the background of a very low 2014 where we've actually seen a decline in container volumes by about 5%," he said.
"So, all in all, we're more or less back to the level of volumes that we've seen in 2013."
Hoffman also noted an increase in exports of perishable goods.
"Perishable exports, again if we compare 2015 to 2014, the first half of the year we've seen a 10% increase in perishable exports despite some of the challenges around citrus black spot. There's a lot of work being done by the export community and the citrus growers association in the conjunction with the EU and the bodies around that. So far so good. We expect a further 2% to 3% perishable exports to come out of South Africa."
"Although, from an Eastern Cape perspective a little bit of a slow-down over the last few weeks mainly due to the weather conditions but what we understand from our customers and exporters is that from a total export perspective those numbers will continue to tick up in the next couple of weeks as we progress through the peak of the citrus export season."
Hoffam said looking at the second half of the year "we're now in the peak of our import season so all the products and things that we would want to give as Christmas gifts are now being imported. We're really seeing that the ships are very full on the inbound leg and from an export perspective we think that we will continue to see this sort of moderate, slight growth, between 2% maybe up to 3% growth in the second half of the year."
