“There is nothing good about a trade war,” said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, which produces the Global Port Tracker report for the National Retail Federation. “It is a vicious circle of retaliation where there are no winners, only losers.”

The government of China has begun to punish port service providers who overcharge for services, giving teeth to a previously announced measure prohibiting excessive port fees in a bid to boost slumping trade volumes.

The devastating impact of Manila’s port congestion was evident in the third quarter volumes of Philippine-based International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) as the bottlenecks put the brakes on throughput.

Official arrival times for ships that qualify for the Panama Canal's Just-in-Time transit service will be determined by new rules, and not the time they arrive at the sea buoys at either end of the canal as they have been since the debut of the service last year.

Cargotec has unveiled its Technology and Competence Centre in an opening ceremony in Tampere, Finland.

U.S. West Coast ports handled 13.1 million 20-foot-equivalent units or 67.5 percent of the 19.4 million TEUs in U.S. containerized cargo trade with Asian countries in 2012, a decline of 0.3 percent year-over-year and just 0.5 percent above the pre-recession year of 2008.

Global port throughput increased only 4.8 percent in 2012, lower than 7.3 percent in 2011 and 14 percent in 2010, reflecting a worsening economic environment and decreases in international shipping and trade volume, according Shanghai International Shipping Institute’s Global Port Development Report 2012.