The Port of Antwerp handled nearly 117m tonnes of freight during the first nine months of the year, down 19.1 per cent on the 144m tonnes handled during the same period of 2008, according to new figures released by the Antwerp Port Authority.
Despite the lower figures, however, the Authority reported that the degree of decline is stable with regard to the figures for the first quarter and first half of the year.
'Volumes seem to have stabilised in the past few months,' said Eddy Bruyninckx, CEO of the Antwerp Port Authority. 'In the third quarter the amount of shipping freight has remained the same, and we suspect that this trend will continue for the remainder of the year. At the moment there are not enough signs for an economic revival in the last quarter of 2009.'
Container volumes dropped 17.4 per cent from over 78m tonnes last year to under 65m tonnes through the first nine months of the year, the Authority said, with standard container volumes down 5.4m TEU, or 18.4 per cent.
Bulk freight contracted 16.2 per cent year-on-year to 42m tonnes, with conventional/breakbulk volumes falling 37.8 per cent to 7.9m tonnes.
'In the meantime, however, the Port of Antwerp is getting ready for the economic revival,' said Mr Bruyninckx. 'Regular calls by the very largest container carriers of 14,000 TEU have been approved by the Permanent Commission for Supervision of Scheldt Navigation. The test calls by these vessels have been judged successful, and so we can now introduce a more flexible schedule for sailing up and down river, to and from Antwerp.
'The calls by these ultra-large container carriers will be further facilitated by the deepening of the Western Scehldt; the necessary dredging work has finally been approved and will start shortly, so that Antwerp will be ready when the world economy picks up once more,' he added.
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