According to Transport Intelligence's latest Recession Watch report, the majority of companies it surveyed are more confident about the economy in 12 months' time than its present state.

UK-based Transport Intelligence (TI) provides a snapshot of the industry's health by including a Global Logistics Business Confidence Index in its Recession Watch March 2009 report.

For its confidence index, TI polled 500 industry executives from different sectors, segments and countries in the first week of March 2009. Respondents were asked to rate the strength of the market in which they operated. They were asked how they felt the next three months would compare to the previous three, and how they felt the next 12 months would compare to the previous year.

A score was attached for each response. For example, if they were "much more confident", they scored 100, "slightly more confident, the score would be 50, "slightly less confident", scored a -50, and "much less confident", the score would be -100.

The country that experienced the largest decline in confidence from February to March was China. In February, confidence in China was relatively high at 34.3 but this figure dropped rapidly in March to -13.3. Meanwhile, India, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the UK showed positive levels of confidence in March.

For confidence levels 12 months in the future, there appeared to be a sharp decline in pessimism for operators in North America and CEE contrasted with a sharp decline in confidence for China and the Asia Pacific region.

When it came to confidence levels in different industry sectors, the main feature for March was a fall in confidence among respondents operating in the consumer goods sector. According to TI, this is traditionally a sector that performs better than most during an economic downturn.

All industry sectors showed a drop in confidence in trading for the next 12 months, with the automotive sector expressing the least confidence.

Of all logistics segments, the express industry is currently the most confident, with the intermodal and contract logistics sectors also remaining positive. By contrast, the shipping sector appears very pessimistic with a negative score of 27 points.

Although the express industry segment was optimistic about current prospects, it is pessimistic regarding the future. For shipping, the 12-month outlook is seen as poor and the sea freight forwarders are also negative about the future. For the express, road, contract logistics and air freight sectors, the 12-month outlook is less depressed than the three-month view.

The world's main container ports continued to see decreased TEU throughput compared with the same month in 2008.

Singapore Port, which saw throughput fall 20% in February, continued its spiral with a further 20% drop in March. TEU volume dropped 6.3% from 2 million in January 2009 to 1.85 million in February 2009.

The two US ports tracked, Long Beach and Los Angeles, were hit hardest in February, with year-on-year drops of 40% and 32.6% respectively. The region also experienced the highest reduction in TEU from February to March with drops of 20.3% and 29.5%.

Hong Kong's February throughput was 26% lower than the same month in 2008, compared to January's year-on-year figure of 23%. The February volume was 19.5% lower than in January.

For more on Recession Watch March 2009, visit www.transportintelligence.com or email Sarah Smith at ssmith@transportintelligence.com.