Cargo handling down at ports

  • 2005-01-06
  • Baltic News Service
RIGA - Baltic ports handled 120.7 million tons of cargo in the eleven months of 2004, down 1.9 percent from the same period in 2003, the Latvian statistics office announced this week. Of all cargoes handled, 43.8 percent were handled by Latvian ports, 35.2 percent by Estonian ports, and 21 percent by Lithuanian ports.

Latvian ports handled 52.8 million tons of cargo in the 11 months of 2004, up 4.8 percent year-on-year.

Eleven-month cargo turnover in Estonia's ports was 42.4 million tons, down 2.1 percent from the same period in 2003, while Lithuania's ports handled 25.4 million tons, or 13.2 percent less, cargo year-on-year.

Among individual ports, Tallinn still leads in terms of turnover, having reloaded 32.2 million tons up to the beginning of December last year, an 8 percent year-on-year increase.

Ventspils was the leader among Latvia's ports, with a cargo turnover of 25.6 million tons, up 1.1 percent from January to November 2003.

Klaipeda Sea Port reloaded 18.4 million tons of cargo in 11 months of last year, down 4.2 percent from the same period in 2003.

The main reason for the overall decline in cargo handling at Baltic ports is due to Russia's policy of forcing companies to export through the St. Petersburg and Primorsk ports on the Gulf of Finland through a variety of high export tariffs.