How did short sea shipping do in 2020?
The Corona pandemic also left its mark on Germany's short sea shipping market last year. The volume of goods handled in short sea shipping in 2020 fell by around 8.4% year-on-year to around 165.6 million t, the lowest level in the last ten years.
As in previous years, short sea shipping volumes were weaker than seaborne cargo throughput at German ports as a whole. Seaborne traffic sank by around 6.4% year-on-year to a total of around 275.7 million t.
Traffic with Scandinavia and the Russian Federation was particularly reduced, although Russia's short sea shipping trade with German ports remained just ahead of Sweden's in 2020. In contrast, transhipment increases were recorded with UK and Turkey, among others, during this period.
Nevertheless, German seaports continued to achieve higher container throughput in short sea shipping than ports in neighbouring countries in 2020. Seaports in Belgium and the Netherlands, on the other hand, posted improvements in this segment in 2020.
In addition to containers, all other cargo types also showed year-on-year declines in throughput in 2020; these were particularly high for dry and liquid bulk cargo.
In ro-ro traffic, the German Baltic ports handled a cumulative total of just under 1.9 million trucks and unaccompanied trailers or semi-trailers in 2020, around 4.7% less than in 2019. The German Baltic ports recorded overall year-on-year declines in handling volumes with all partner countries except Lithuania. (sh)