How maritime trade performed in 2020
The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has published a report that aims to quantify the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic measures in maritime transport.
Maritime trade in the European Union (EU) fell by 9.3% in 2020, which is equivalent to a loss of 226 million t of the traffic managed in EU ports EU. This drop is notably greater in the EU than the world average (-3.6%).
According to the available customs data collected in the report, the most significant decrease occurred in imports to the EU from non-EU countries, which fell by 12.2% in 2020 compared to 2019.
The volume of goods moved within intra-community countries fell by 7.1% and EU exports to third countries registered a decrease of 4.3%. Ship calls at EU ports were also down 10.2% compared to 2019, especially between May and June.
In this period, there was a 26.5% decrease in the number of ship calls in European ports compared to the same period of the previous year. Nevertheless, the share of maritime transport in world trade in the modal split increased by 3% to 88% of the total. (cd)