by Marek Błuś
With 337.45 million tonnes, the seaports of the Baltic Sea region handled slightly less general cargo last year than in 2018, a drop of 1.2% year-on-year, and a contraction of 0.61 percentage points in its overall share of the region's total.
Only containerized freight traffic managed to add size in 2019, both tonnage- (+2.5% yoy to 101mt) and TEU-wise (+3.6% yoy to 11,216k).
Confusing as it might sound in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, more passengers went through the region's ports' quays, up by 1.6% yoy to altogether 117.7m travellers, a figure that's woefully doomed to plummet in our 2020 census, as some ferry lines reported decreases of up to 80-90% over this year's second quarter, virtually no cruise calls as added insult to injury.
On a more positive tone, so far nothing seems to indicate a meltdown of the general cargo market nor its ro-ro & ferry, container, and break-bulk constituents.
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