Seventh record year for Antwerp

Although the last quarter clearly showed the effects of the downturn in the world economy, the Port continued to do relatively well and was supported by “excellent” figures for the first nine months. As a result and although fewer ships called compared with 2007, Antwerp gained market share within the top three in the Hamburg – Le Havre range (the other two being Rotterdam and Hamburg).

Container volume rose by 7.7% to nearly 102m tonnes, up 6% in terms of teus to more than 8.6m teu. Ro/ro volumes remained almost the same as in 2007, with 4.4m tonnes of wheeled freight, whilst 339,000 cars were imported and 612,000 exported, with the total volume being up by just over 1%.

A fall of 15% to nearly 17m tonnes in conventional/break-bulk freight was recorded compared to an exceptional year in 2007 when very high volumes of steel from Asia were handled. In 2008 the amount of steel was down 14.1% to 10.5 million tonnes, along with forest products, which fell by 18% to 2,700,000 tonnes mainly as a result of trade being lost to other ports. Fruit volumes on the other hand rose by 1% to 1.3m tonnes, consolidating Antwerp’s position as the largest fruit port in Europe.