Volumes climb at Port of Antwerp

The Port of Antwerp has announced that it handled some 96m tonnes of cargo during the first six months of the year, an increase of 10.4 per cent on the same period of 2010, when volumes came in at 87m tonnes.

Container volumes rose by 3.4 per cent during the first half, from 51.3m to 53m tonnes, with container volumes up 4.3 per cent to 4.4m TEU.

'The container trade recovered particularly well after the recession, having last year already exceeded the record level (in tonnes) previously achieved in 2008,' the port authority noted. 'Indeed, in 2010 Antwerp experienced the strongest growth on the Hamburg-Le Havre range.'

Conventional freight grew 16.9 per cent year-on-year, with bulk freight up 21.5 per cent and the ro/ro sector expanding by 15.8 per cent.

The number of seagoing ships calling at the port increased by 7.3 per cent to 7,745, with gross tonnage up 13.4 per cent to just under 160m tonnes, while the number of freight handling jobs jumped 4.8 per cent to 794,232.