Container cargo handled at South Korea's seaports rose 8.2 percent from a year earlier in August on a growing number of international traders using the country as a distribution hub, the government said Wednesday.

   The amount of cargo handled at seaports reached 1.8 million 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) last month, compared with 1.67 million units a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs.

   The August tally marks the sixth consecutive month the amount of container cargo shipped in and out of the country's seaports exceed 1.8 million TEUs.

   "The overall amount of cargo handled slightly dropped from July when it increased 13.2 percent on-year, but the growth momentum continued to remain strong," the ministry said in a news release.

   "Export-import cargo increased only slightly due to the slowing economic recovery of advanced markets, but the amount of transshipment cargo jumped by a large margin, continuing its double-digit increase for the sixth consecutive month."

   The amount of export-import cargo rose 1.4 percent from a year earlier to 1.06 million TEUs while the amount of transshipment cargo, or cargo handled here while en route to a different final destination, soared 18.7 percent to 583,000 TEUs.

   By port, cargo handled at the country's largest port in Busan surged 12.2 percent on-year to 1.37 million TEUs.

   The amount of cargo processed at Gwangyang port, 420 kilometers south of Seoul, dropped 14 percent to 165,000 TEUs from the same period last year. The figure also marks a 1.3 percent drop from the previous month.

   The ministry earlier attributed the drop in the amount of cargo handled at Gwangyang port to an injection of new ships by shipping companies in May.

Source: Yonhap News (Sept. 7, 2011)