India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has published the August edition of its credit news digest on India’s logistics sector. It highlights the key volume and realisation trends across three logistics sub-sectors – sea logistics (global and domestic), surface logistics (rail and road) and air logistics (passenger and freight).
The sea and road transportation segment witnessed a continued recovery on a month on month (mom) basis in August 2020, though it remains lower year on year (yoy). In August 2020, India’s ports volumes continued the recovery trend displayed in June-July, by improving to 85%-90% of the pre-COVID levels. In August 2020, E-way bill collections rose 2% mom (though down 14% vs February 2020; down 3% yoy); while railway volumes were up 4% yoy, they were down 13% on a YTD basis. With airline carriers re-starting operations from June 2020, air transport activity too is normalising with plant load factor at around 65% for flights, though substantial fleet remains grounded and passenger numbers in July were significantly below normal levels.
Sea Transport – Port Volumes Continue to Recover: The overall major port volumes witnessed a monthly improvement in August 2020, though the volume trade remains lower yoy. The overall major port volumes recovered in August 2020, reporting a decline of 10% yoy, (July: down 13% yoy; June: down 15% yoy).
During April-August 2020, the overall volumes fell 17%. The recovery in the monthly volumes has been led by a 38% and 29% increase in the imports of iron ore and fertilisers, respectively. Dwell time for import containers at JNPT Port witnessed a monthly improvement to 22 hours in July 2020 (June: 38 hours; May: 65 hours) with gradual resumption of business activities. The port dwell time for export containers increased marginally to 75 hours in July 2020 (June: 69 hours; May: 60 hours).
SOURCE DST
