by Marek Błuś and Przemysław Myszka

Amidst a relatively flat year overall, the region's general cargo market rolled up its sleeves and walked in leaps and bounds in 2021.

Having totalled 342.79mt (+8.8% year-on-year), it is once again Baltic's leading trade. Both its unitised and break-bulk legs made significant advances, up 8.5% yoy to 258.58mt and 9.5% yoy to 84.22mt, respectively.

With an increase of 11.9% yoy to 157.90mt, the region's wheeled traffic once again showed it is second to none.

The turnover of ro-ro cargo units overtook that of twenty-footers: 11,629k (+11.5% yoy) vs 11,373k (+4.5% yoy). That said, the container market was up, too; with 100.67mt, some 3.6% more than the 2020 result.

The coronavirus pandemic was a wee bit less burdensome last year, making it possible for the passenger sector to earn an extra 7.6% yoy in the number of served passengers (59.59m).

Generally speaking, not a bad year. Which, in all probability, won't be possible to say about 2022 once we have the figures…

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