Swiss Port of Basel on its way back
2021 saw a comeback of cargo flows in the Port of Switzerland, the operator of the Swiss inland ports on the River Rhine in Basel.
The port authority’s three hubs handled 5.41 million t of goods in 2021, 5.5% more than the 5.1 million t in 2020, but less than the 6 million t achieved in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. Yet, the container sector surged by more than 10% in 2021 compared to 2020, amounting to more than 126,000 teu despite a period of low water in Q4/2021.
While the Auhafen Muttenz (1.7 million t, +13.6%) benefited from the positive development in the mineral oil freight segment, Birsfelden (1.9 million t, +3.3%) managed to increase cargo handling across all freight segments.
Around 1.5 million t were handled in the port of Kleinhüningen, which corresponds to an uptick of 2.3% compared to 2020. Exports grew by 9% or 76,000 t, while imports went up by 4.8% to a total of 4.5 million t.
The main driver of the relative decline in comparison to 2019 was reduced mobility due to the lockdown and the obligation to work from home, which led to lower sales of mineral oil products.
But other sectors were also affected by reduced economic output, resulting in a decline of 15.5% from 2019 to 2020. While unfavourable water levels had a negative impact on throughput in October and November, volumes rose again in December, thus ensuring an overall positive result in 2021 (sh)