Container handling through China’s mainland ports had a stellar start to 2018 with an 11% growth on a year earlier. That was up from 2% in December but should be taken with a pinch of salt given the later lunar new year. Waning business optimism provides another reason to be cautious. Shanghai, the largest port with 3.39 million TEUs handled, was the slowest growing with a 3% increase – it may be still be suffering from capacity constraints that won’t easily be fixed.