Cargo, Good for Business, Latvia, Markets and Companies, Port, Transport

The ferry lines connecting Ventspils with Swedish and German ports were used by 179,967 people in 2016, which is the highest number ever recorded at the port in a year. The ferry lines were also actively used for shipping various goods to and from Ventspils. The amount of these cargos exceeded two million tons, which is a new record of ro-ro cargos handled by Ventspils port in a year.

Stena Line, which operated the ferries running on the Ventspils-Nynashamn and Ventspils-Travemunde routes in 2016, has decided to increase the number of ferry runs between Ventspils and Nynashamn to 24 per week (12 ferry runs from Ventspils to Sweden) this year. At the same time, the ferry route to Germany has been diverted from Ventspils to Liepaja, while the Swedish route from Liepaja has been moved to Ventspils. To ensure cargo deliveries to Western Europe, a new ferry operator, Swedish Orient Line, launched operations in the Freeport of Ventspils in 2017, opening cargo ferry lines to Belgium and the UK.

A universal terminal, which can also handle ro-ro cargos, was built in Ventspils in 2000 as the port started work to diversify its cargos in order to reduce its reliance on bulk and liquid cargos. This provided the opportunity to develop ferry traffic, which not only enables the port to diversify cargos and provide new transport corridors, including to Chinese partners, but also to develop production of exportable goods in Ventspils, which is one of the freeport's objectives, the spokeswoman explained.

As reported, the terminals based in the northwestern Latvian Freeport of Ventspils reloaded 18.8 mln tons of cargo in 2016, which was 3.7 mln tons or 16.4% less than a year before when the port's cargo turnover was 22.5 mln tons. The decline occurred primarily because of a significant drop in the turnover of oil product and coal cargos.