Volumes edge upwards at Veracruz

By contrast, there were declines in tonnage of 10% for breakbulk cargo, which was hard hit by reduced volumes of steel product imports and steel tube exports, 8.8% for bulk agricultural products and 8.8% for non-petroleum liquids, particularly vegetable oil imports, which were down 34% from the first quarter of 2006.

Imports fell to 3.4m tonnes, down 1.3%, mainly because of an 18% drop in agricultural bulks, particularly sorghum (-48.3%), wheat (-12.7%) and soybeans (-12.4%). Exports grew by 14.2% to 923,899 tonnes, thanks in great part to tonnage gains for containerised cargo (+22.5%) and automobiles (+18.1%). No domestic cargo was handled during the first quarters of 2006 or 2007.

Veracruz is Mexico’s number one auto port, handling vehicles from Volkswagen, Chrysler, Nissan, Ford, and Audi, among others. It also ranks after Manzanillo as Mexico’s second largest container port.