The company's fleet also served more passengers in January-September this year, up 36.4% year-on-year to 764 thousand travellers.

The Estonian ferry company's fleet also transported 613,006 private vehicles (-8.2% year-on-year) as well as carried 238,628 trucks & trailers (-3.7% yoy).

This year saw the launch of intra-Baltic cruises on board Birka Gotland, which attracted 296,085 travellers since spring.

Tonnage-wise, wheeled (ferry and ro-ro) cargo totted up to 6.73 million tonnes (+9.2% year-on-year).

Tonnage-wise, containerised freight going via the Latvian seaport totalled 3.68 million tonnes, up 1.1% year-on-year.

Dry bulk, the Latvian seaport's chief trade, contracted by 4.7% year-on-year, including the 0.8% yoy drop in grain turnover to 2.27mt.

Apart from liquid bulk and non-marine, which contracted by 21.4% year-on-year to 1.02mt and by 46.4% yoy to 13kt, all other freight groups advanced: ferry and ro-ro cargo by 2.6% yoy to 5.04mt, dry bulk by 11.3% yoy to 1.74mt, containerised freight by 10.1% yoy to 1.55mt, and break-bulk by 10.6% yoy to 363kt.

International cargo traffic totalled 1.24mt (+1.9% year-on-year), of which imports totted up to 633.9 kt (+8.7% yoy) and exports to 607.7kt (-4.4% yoy), with goods transported domestically adding the remaining 26kt (-14.2% yoy).

International cargo traffic totalled 10.14mt (-6% year-on-year), of which exports amounted to 6.54mt (-7.8% yoy) and imports to 3.6mt (-2.7% yoy), with the remaining 131.2kt handled domestically (-24.7% yoy).

The sharpest decrease was noted in the handling of coal, down 66.5% year-on-year to 618.1kt.