Baltic, Port, Transport

Ainars Slesers.

Slesers stressed that, judging from the current business trends and the development of container freight business, the Riga Port will sooner or later become the largest port in the Baltic countries.

Financial turnover is a very important characteristic of a port, and the turnover of the Riga Port increased significantly in the first half of the year, Slesers said. He believes that, sooner or later, the Riga Port will overtake the Ventspils Port, whose development is impeded by the shareholders' protracted arguments.

As reported, Latvian ports' total cargo turnover in the first six months of this year totaled 39.128 million tons, or 2.6% more than in the first half of 2007, the Transport Ministry's Transit Policy Department informs.

Ventspils Port remains the largest port in Latvia in terms of cargo turnover with 14.947 million tons of cargo handled in the first six months this year, however, this is 7.1% less than in the first half of 2007. In the meantime, Riga Port handled 14.363 million tons of cargo in the first half of this year, or 14.1% more than in the respective period of 2007.

Liepaja Port's cargo turnover increased 10.9% to 2.237 million tons.

Latvia's seven small ports handled a total of 649,700 tons of cargo in the first six months this year, or 2.6% more than in the respective period of 2007.