OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2010. In Jan-June, the Freeport of Riga handled 1,960 ships, or 2.5% more from the same period in 2009, Baltic Course reports citing the Port Authority press release.

Half-year freight traffic volume via Port of Riga dropped nearly 1.5% to 14.57 million tons.
There were 25% and 16% more calls in six straight months of dry cargo carriers and box-ships respectively. The number of vessels in container lines boosted by 39.2%, while tankers and bulkers calls reduced.

Dry and liquid bulk cargoes dropped in H1 by 10.5% and 10.1% respectively, while general cargoes jumped 60.8% to 2,985.70 tons versus 1,857.00 tons a year earlier.

Six-month containerized goods volume passing through Riga port soared to 1.2 million tons, hitting the Port’s high. The record growth in the containerized cargoes was possible thanks to several container operators, including Unifeeder (+34%) and MSC (+24%).

In January-June 83.9% of the total containers volume was handled by Baltic Container Terminal Ltd.

H1 container traffic via the region increased by 31.6%. The Riga Port boosted its containers throughput by 45%, the Authority report said.