Good for Business, Latvia, Port, Tourism, Transport

Photo: rop.lv

Compared to the first half-year of 2016, the volume of containerized cargo handled by the port has increased by 9.4% - this year 2.18 million tons (+ 13.8%) of containerized cargo have already been transshipped via the port of Riga or 208.100  TEU  (+ 14.0%), which is the highest result of the first half-year in the history of the port's existence. There is also a positive increase in regards of the bulk cargo turnover (+ 4.5%).

In general, in the first half of 2017, the best results are presented by the general cargo segment - 3.36 million tons of general cargo were handled at the port of Riga, which is by 9.4% more than in the first half of 2016 (+287.6 thousand tons). The positive indicators can be related to the increase in the turnover of containerized cargo -  all three port container handling companies - SIA Baltic Container terminal”, SIA Rīgas Universālais terminals and SIA Rīgas centrālais terminals - have been operating  successfully in 2017. This year the turnover for metal goods cargo (167, 2 thousand tons, + 95, 1%) has doubled, the volume of ro-ro cargo has increased (184, 7 thousand tons, + 46, 1%) as well. At the same time, the turnover of general cargo (timber) decreased during the reporting period, and 0.8 million tons (-14, 0%) of this cargo were shipped from the port.  

In the first half of 2017, the port of Riga handled 10.83 million tons of bulk cargo, which is by 467,1 thousand tons more than during the reporting period in 2016.   More than half (59%) of all bulk cargo volume consists of coal. Although it has been predicted that a significant drop in the Russian transit flow could be expected, total amount of 2.63 million tons of cargo was transshipped via the port in June, thus the May indicator level (-0.8%) has been actually maintained. Moreover, in comparison with May, the amount of coal (+ 1.3%) and bulk chemicals (+ 11.3%) cargo transshipped via the port has increased slightly. Thus, general coal throughput in the first half of 2017 was even more successful than in the first half of 2016 - 6.4 million tons of coal were handled by the port, which is by 7.4% or 440.4 thousand tons more than in 2016.

During the reporting period, the total volume of bulk timber cargo (chips, granules, lumber), handled at the port, has increased - 1.3 million tons of this cargo (+ 3.8%) have been shipped from the port and by quantity it is the second largest type of dry bulk cargo handled at the port. Positive dynamics indicators were also registered for bulk cargo of metal (0.68 million tons, + 42.0%), grain products (0.49 million tons, + 2.7%), rock rubble (209.0 thousand tons, + 82, 2%) and peat (92, 2 thousand tons, + 4, 4%). At the same time, the turnover of chemical bulk cargo (1.27 million tons, -12.7%) and soy products (126.5 thousand tons, -36.7%) was lower.

In the six months of 2017, the port handled 3.27 million tons of oil products, which is by almost one third (-31.8%) less than in the first half of 2016 (-1.5 million tons).  

As a particularly successful the first half-year of 2017 has been for passenger traffic - during the reporting period, the total number of passengers serviced at the port of Riga increased by 45.7% and reached the amount of 364.2 thousand passengers (+114,2 thousand.). Positive indicators have been registered on both ferry and cruise lines. 90% of all passengers were serviced by the Tallink line - 329.4 thousand passengers, which is by 40.5% or 94.9 thousand more compared to the reporting period of 2016. As for the cruise segment, the number of cruise tourists visiting the city has increased more than twice: in the six months of 2017, 33 cruise ships arrived at the port, bringing 34.8 thousand cruise tourists (+19.3 thousand passengers) to Riga. This year, the cruise ship “Celebrity Silhouette”, which is by far the largest cruise vessel in size that has ever visited the port - its length is 315 meters and its width is 36.9 meters, has called Riga five times. In general, in the first half of 2017 Riga was visited by cruise ship passengers from 98 countries, most of them arriving from the USA, Germany and the United Kingdom.