News / Taiwan gears up for more transhipment amid 90-day US tariff grace period

Yali Shi | Dreamstime.com

The Taiwan government plans to create more berths on the island’s container ports to attract more transhipment volumes, anticipating more traffic from South-east Asia amid the US-China trade war.

Transport and communications minister Chen Shih-kai yesterday told the Legislative Yuan (parliament) that his ministry was formulating countermeasures amid the 90-day grace period on additional tariffs on US imports from all countries.

On 8 April, President Trump announced that, except from China, all goods imported into the US would have a baseline 10% tariff for 90 days. He added, however, that imports from China would have a 145% tariff, due to its retaliation.

Mr Chen said the Taiwan International Ports Corporation (TIPC), which oversees the island’s ports, is planning to create more berths in Kaohsiung and Keelung  to facilitate transhipment to the US.

TIPC also plans to offer at least $600,000 in incentives to liner operators, including non-Taiwanese shipping lines, that transport containers between Taiwan and the US.

Mr Chen said: “Right now, Evergreen, Yang Ming and Wan Hai Lines don’t intend to increase transpacific sailings. If demand for outbound shipments increases in the short term, and there’s insufficient shipping capacity, we will ask our national shipping lines to increase sailings and slots.”

The minister continued: “Initially, when the reciprocal tariffs were to be implemented on 9 April, some shippers cancelled their bookings. The original estimate of the container loading rate in our ports for May was about 70%-80%, a slight decrease of about 5% from the loading rate of 75%-85% in April.

“However, the loading rate gradually recovered after the additional tariffs were suspended. We will continue to observe developments.”

Mr Chen noted that factories in South-east Asia were rushing out export orders to beat additional tariffs coming in after the 90-day grace period.

Taiwan’s ports have 15 weekly connections to the US. Last year, containerised exports to the US stood at 590,000 teu, while another 785,000 teu, mainly steel and plastic products, were transhipped to the US.