In the first ten months of 2023 grain freight turnover at Latvia’s largest sea ports was up 14% and 32% up in the country’s railway network, as reported by the Communications Department of the Ministry of Transport.
This includes imports of Ukrainian grain shipments.
In ten months Latvia’s largest sea ports observed growth for both grain and container freight turnover – they went up 4.6% when compared to the first ten months of 2022. There was also a 3.6% increase in freight turnover at small Latvian sea ports. The biggest contribution here came from Salacgriva sea port’s 36.4% share of freight volumes.
Compared to the first ten months of 2022 and due to anti-Russian sanctions
the overall turnover of freight at sea ports has gone down 16.9%.
Mainly freight volume decline is observed in coal and petrol product segments, as well as bulk and general freight sector. The railway freight transport situation is heavily impacted by the geopolitical situation as well. There the overall freight turnover is down 28.9%, because volumes of petrol products, coal and mineral fertilisers are down.
Riga sea port handled 15.7 million tonnes of freight in ten months. The volume of grain freight handled at this sea port is up 26.3%. Growth is also observed in the container cargo segment – it is up 7.4%. However, when compared to last year, the volume of coal, petrol product, ore and lumber freight is down in Riga.
The overall freight turnover at Liepāja Sea Port was 5.9 million tonnes. Turnover of wood chips handled by this sea port is on a rise (+8.1%), as well as Ro-Ro freight shipped to and from Germany (+1.2%).
Like with Riga, the turnover of grain freight is up in Liepāja (+15.2%). The situation is good when it comes to sugar freight as well, where growth is double of that of the first ten months of 2022. However, there was a drop for coal, petrol products, construction materials, container and bulk freight when compared to the same period of 2022.
Ventspils sea port handled 9.1 million tonnes of freight in ten months of 2023. This sea port as well continued growing its handled grain freight volumes, which went up 14.5% this year. The volume of ore freight is up 20.2% in Ventspils.
Turnover of construction materials is up 15.2 times.
Similarly to other large sea ports, there was a drop in petrol product and coal freight at Ventspils sea port. The volume of lumber and Ro-Ro freight handled by Ventspils sea port in ten months of 2023 was below that of 2022.
The priority in the transport and logistics sector remain the attraction of freight, meeting with foreign businessmen and potential partners to discuss future cooperation and form new logistics routes, reported the Ministry of Transport.
Also read: Latvia borrows EUR 600 million from international financial markets
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