A challenging year for Port of Antwerp-Bruges – Ireland traffic up

By 12 January 20242024 Newsletter week 02
January 12, 2024

Geopolitical tensions and slowing global economic growth are driving down industrial production and trade flows. As a result, total throughput, which was 271 million tonnes of cargo in 2023, is down 5.5% from the previous year.

Despite this difficult context, thanks to the added value of the merger, the market share of the container segment increased compared to the other ports in the Hamburg – Le Havre range.

To ensure its strategic role as a world port in the future, sustainable growth remains a priority and a major investment programme is foreseen for the next 10 years.

Total roll-on/roll-off traffic is holding up relatively well with a slight decrease of 2.1%. Transport equipment troughput (in units) is up thanks to an increase in the throughput of new cars. In 2023, 3.56 million new cars were handled, an annualised growth of 9.0%. Throughput of unaccompanied cargo (excluding containers) carried on RoRo vessels is also down slightly (-1.5%). More than half of these flows are related to the UK and are down (-4.9%), while traffic related to Ireland is up sharply (+17.9%), while Scandinavia traffic is holding up.

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