Cargo, Good for Business, Latvia, Port, Transport

Bulk cargos, which dominated in Latvian ports in January-July this year, grew 15.8% year-on-year to 20.362 million tons. Handling of coal increased by 30.8% to 11.609 million tons, chemical cargos fell 17.2% to 1.662 million tons, and woodchip cargos rose 11.4% to 857,900 tons.

Reloading of liquid cargos fell 13.8% year-on-year to 11.198 million tons in January-July 2017, with oil products making up the largest amount, or 10.726 million tons, which was a 14.1% drop from the first seven months in 2016.

The turnover of general cargos grew 9.6% year-on-year to 6.644 million tons in January-July 2017. These cargos included 2.602 million tons of container cargo, up 14.8%, 1.947 million tons of timber, down 2.2%, and 1.781 million tons of roll on/roll off cargo, up 12.2%.

Riga was the leading Latvian port by cargo turnover in January-July this year, having reloaded 19.99 million tons of cargo, which was 5.8% less than in the first seven months of 2016. The port of Ventspils followed with 13.579 million tons of cargo reloaded in January-July 2017, up 18.4% year-on-year, and the port of Liepaja was third with 3.674 million tons of cargo, up 21.5% from January-July 2016.

Skulte led Latvia's small ports by cargo turnover in January-June 2017, as it reloaded 440,600 tons at a 28.4% rise year-on-year. Mersrags followed with 226,000 tons, down 10.8%, and Salacgriva was third with 135,300 tons, down 13.4%.

All small Latvian ports together handed 955,900 tons of cargos in the seven months of this year, up 5.1% from the respective period last year.

In the first seven months of 2016, the Latvian ports reloaded 36.636 million tons of cargo.