In June 2010, Shanghai International Port (Group) (SIPG) acquired a EUR27.16mn (US$33.2mn) 25% stake in Belgiums Zeebrugge container port that is wholly owned by APM Terminals, a subsidiary of AP Moller Maersk. The purchase follows comments from SIPG chair Lu Haihu that the company will not seek further short-term opportunities for container terminal expansions at the Port of Shanghai. Lu told Seatrade Asia: Overall, Shanghai is suffering from an oversupply of box facilities, so we will not be launching any new facilities for the time being. Zeebrugge, Belgiums second largest container port with a capacity of more than 2mn 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), is an important gateway for trade and has remained relatively resilient to the difficult global macroeconomic environment, recording positive throughput growth in 2008 and 2009.

The collapse of the five-party coalition government in April 2010 started a new period of potential instability in Belgium, with complex negotiations taking place across the linguistic and ideological dividing lines of Belgian society. At the time of writing, the government has remained in office on a caretaker basis as talks continue. The danger was that during this time economic policy would drift and attention could be distracted from dealing with pressing fiscal problems. The countrys deficit is calculated at around 6% of GDP and unemployment is also high at over 8%. BMI forecasts a slow recovery from 2009s recession, when the economy contracted by 3.1%. Our macroeconomic forecasts remain unchanged from our previous quarterly report but the downside risks have edged up. We expect GDP growth of 1.1% in 2010, accelerating gradually to 1.3% in 2011. Across our five-year forecast period to 2014 we expect average annual GDP growth of 1.5%.

We estimate Belgian airfreight volume fell very sharply in 2009, down by 21.9%. In 2010, we continue to project a very weak recovery of just 1.6%. The road freight story is similar. In 2009, the amount of cargo hauled by road contracted by 18.3%. For this year we predict growth of only 0.2% in road freight volumes. We also expect a modest recovery in railfreight in 2010 after a sharp fall in 2009. Volume was down by 14.6% last year and we forecast it to rise by only 0.6% in 2010.
At Belgiums major ports the picture is L-shaped, with a very big drop in cargo handling last year and a modest recovery in 2010. At the countrys largest port, Antwerp, we expect volumes to go up by 0.4% this year, after a 16.7% fall in 2009. Container volumes will fare only marginally better. Belgiums foreign trade has not been volatile in recent years, rather the pattern has been for very slow growth in real terms. Total trade grew by 0.4% in 2009 and we forecast it expanding by the same amount in 2010. In fact, for the next five years imports and exports are projected to grow by an average rate of 0.4% per annum.

There are downside risks to our freight transport forecasts for Belgium. The most significant of these is that the negotiations to form a new coalition government drag on for a few more months, postponing urgent fiscal and economic policy decisions. This would almost certainly lower the countrys growth prospects, with consequential knock-on effects for freight demand.