Spanish ports are back with containers
The Spanish public ports handled 351.8 million t of merchandise between January and August this year. This is 6% above the level of the same period in 2020. However, this volume is still 5.7% below the pre-pandemic levels of January - August 2019.
Compared to this period, only containerised cargo in these Spanish ports registered very moderate growth (+0.4%), while the other commodities decreased: liquid bulk by 11.7%, solids by 7.8% and general cargo by 4%.
Nevertheless, compared to the pre-pandemic figures, import and export traffic amounted to 4.1 million teu, slightly exceeding the amount of 2019 (+1%) in the first eight months of the year. Containers in transit totalled 6.4 million teu (-0.3%) and domestic cabotage 1.3 million teu (-4.3%). Ro-ro traffic posts a fall of 3% compared to the same period of 2019.
Compared to January - August 2020, conventional cargo and solid bulks grew by 14.2%, cargo in containers by 6.7% and liquid bulks decreased by 1.5% in the same period of 2021. (cd)