Empty containers costing the country

New Zealand ports could boost productivity with a more efficient supply chain, a transport summit has been told.

About 30 per cent of the containers leaving or coming into a New Zealand port are empty, which is costing the country dearly, says Ports of Auckland managing director Jens Madsen.

The cost of "moving air" was one of a number of peculiarities of the New Zealand supply chain Madsen identified in a speech to a Transport New Zealand Summit last week.

His conclusion was that New Zealand needed to look at the whole supply chain when planning infrastructure policy. To increase productivity a more efficient supply chain should be created.

"If we do not, there is a risk that New Zealand will slip further behind, depriving our economy of billions of dollars per annum," he said.

New Zealand has 11 ports that handle containers. Australia has five major container ports. There is also an imbalance between imports and exports at most New Zealand ports.

"This leads to a high number of empty containers needing to be redistributed around New Zealand to be filled up with export goods."

Madsen predicts that a hierarchy will evolve naturally. Larger container ships will call at fewer ports, forcing a rationalisation of the sector.

"The move to a smaller number of international seaports does not mean that other ports will wither and die."

There was a vast under-use of rail transport and coastal shipping and a reliance on road meant the supply chain was exposed to congestion.

In the United States, when west coast ports geared up to handle larger container vessels the supporting off-port infrastructure was not changed and a major gridlock developed.

Madsen said there was a real risk this could happen with larger ships calling here.

- NZPA