The Freeport of Riga has become a leader again

The Freeport CEO Mr. Leonids Loginovs: "The Freeport of Riga has positioned itself as the largest and the best of the Baltic ports, so the Freeport Authority is focused on not only maintaining its leadership, acquired last year, but on continuing to increase cargo turnover at the port of Riga. It is needless to compete with the St. Petersburg port, but it is feasible to snap at their heels improving performance indicators, while maintaining an edge over the largest Lithuanian and Estonian ports. It should be noted that together with successful cargo handling results there is also a significant increase in the number of cruise ship passengers. "

According to the six-month statistical data 17.4 million tons of various cargo were handled at the Freeport, that is 7.4% less than during the previous year, but in the framework of the last five years, this is the second most successful half of the year. It has been already mentioned, that in the last January unusually large volumes of cargo were handled at the port of Riga, actually, it was the largest volume in the history of the port – and the impact was maintained throughout the year. Due to this fact, the current year’s cargo handling turnover is considered to be successful. Assessing indicators’ upward trend, it can be anticipated that the Freeport of Riga will be among the leading ports of the region this year as well.

In the first six months of this year 10.10 million tons of cargo were handled in the dry bulk segment, that is 9% less compared to the corresponding period of 2012. In regards of the dry bulk segment, the biggest volume increase was observed in mineral fertilizers handling (+ 13.4%), and + 9.6% in a non-labeled bulk. Wood pellet handling increased by 22.5%, coal handling volume has fallen - 12.8%, there was 7.4% decrease in the amount of wood chips handling.

Minimal decline (- 1.1%) was observed in the general cargo segment, where 3.3 million tons of cargo were handled in total. The most important type of cargo of this cargo segment is containerized cargo, that has increased by 3.8% this year compared to the same period of the previous year. Mr. Leonids Loginovs indicates that containerized cargo share in the global cargo is increasing and he welcomes the fact that the Freeport is able to adapt to the global changes, constantly improving performance indicators in regards of containerized cargo handling. There is a 2.5% increase in the Roll on / roll off handled cargo volume. Timber cargo volume decreased by -11.4%

. 4 million tons of cargo were handled in Liquid cargo segment this year, that is about 8% less than in the 1st half of the previous year. Of these volumes handled, 3.9 million tons are oil products, that is 8.3% less than during the relevant period of the previous year. At the same time liquefied gas handling volumes have increased by 52.8%.

Passenger traffic recorded 4% growth - it refers both to the Tallink ferry line (+2.8%) and cruise ship passengers (+18.3%), this year 386 276 passengers were serviced at the Freeport of Riga.