English
At the beginning of July, the Freeport of Riga Board meeting approved the Annual Report of the Freeport of Riga Authority for 2021. Despite the pandemic’s impact on the global economy and the transport sector as a whole, the Freeport of Riga worked with a positive financial result in the past year.
“I am pleased that in these stressful and challenging times for the industry we were able to maintain the financial stability of the port of Riga. According to the data of the audited financial report, in 2021 the excess of revenues of the Port of Riga over expenditures amounted to 2.26 million euros, which indicates sound financial planning”, informed Viesturs Zeps, the Board Chairman. “We have managed to balance our expenses and the need to invest in the further development of the port - both in the improvement of the port's infrastructure and in the digitalization of the port's processes. For example, our work on the industrialization of the port, the development of a new solar energy park, as well as on several foreign investment projects is ongoing,” added V. Zeps.
In 2021, the Freeport of Riga Authority invested 11.7 million euros in the development of the port's infrastructure. The annual contribution to the budget of the Riga city municipality has reached 2.5 million euros. According to the Law on Ports, it shall be used for the development of the infrastructure related to the port operation.
In general, in 2021, 21.5 million tons of cargo were handled in the port of Riga, which is by 2.2 million tons or 9.8% less than in 2020. The reason for this was the pandemic’s impact on the entire transit sector, as well as a significant drop in energy resources’ cargo – the amount of cargo of coal and oil products decreased by 2.1 million. tons. In the last quarter of the year, due to the rapid increase in the energy resources’ prices around the world, cargo circulation in this group recovered, positively affecting the port's overall indicators. On the other hand, the total volume of other cargo, which is 18.2 million tons, has remained at the level of 2020 in the past year.
In 2021, 220 commercial companies worked in the Freeport of Riga - cargo transshipment and storage terminals, production, shipbuilding and repair companies, ship agencies, supply, bunkering and other port service providers - together providing jobs for more than 4,000 people.
In 2021, the companies of the port of Riga contributed around 230 million euros to the Latvian economy. According to the research of the think tank CERTUS, each ton of cargo transshipped in the port of Riga provides a contribution of EUR 10.7 to Latvia's GDP.
The revenues of the Freeport of Riga last year reached 34.26 million euros, which was by 9% less than the year before.
