In Belgium, the port of Antwerp has announced that it has enjoyed its best-ever six months in terms of freight handled, with 118,648 tonnes moving through the port, an increase of 6.5 per cent year-on-year.
According to the port, the main driver was container freight, which experienced further rapid growth of 8.2 per cent compared with the first six months of 2017.
Indeed, May was an all-time record month, with the port handling a peak container volume of more than 1m TEUs.
Growth was experienced on all trade routes, both on the import and on the export side, the port authority noted.
“The strong performance of the port of Antwerp, our main economic engine, is good news for the Belgian economy in general,” declared Port Authority CEO Jacques Vandermeiren. “The growth figures confirm our role as a leading world player and demonstrate the continuing attractiveness of the port.
'They also confirm the previous forecasts that we will soon reach our maximum container capacity,' he added. 'During the past period we have well exceeded the optimum utilisation level for the terminals below the locks, which can have a negative impact on efficiency. We will therefore continue to emphasise the importance of having additional and commercially useful container capacity below the locks.”
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