In 2021 port of Zeebrugge realized a growth of 4.6% and the total handled tonnage just does not reach the cape of 50 million tons (49,169,915 total tonnage). Only the year 2010, with 49.6 million tons, precedes 2021 in the records.
With the container sector leading the way (+15.1%), all sectors except liquid bulk (-10.9%) posted positive results last year: RoRo +5.1%, Bulk +6.7%, Solid bulk +2%.
For the port of Zeebrugge whose largest trading partner is the United Kingdom, Brexit posed an unprecedented challenge.
The existing connections to Ireland proved to be an absolute asset in the pre-and post-Brexit era.
In 2021, Zeebrugge saw traffic volumes on the UK liner services decreasing by 4.1%.
In contrast, traffic volumes on Irish destinations were up 38.7%.
The other shortsea ro-ro destinations also showed good growth: Scandinavia +10.4%, Southern Europe +22.8%.
Container traffic experienced growth of 15.1% to a total volume of over 20.6 million tons or 2,205,457 TEUs. Both the handling of RoRo containers (+5.2%), LoLo (lift-on lift-off) containers +30.7%, and container volumes via estuary shipping (36.5%) are increasing.