Barcelona, Spain (PortSEurope) August 12, 2022 – In January and July 2022, cargo traffic recorded at the Port of Barcelona was up +1% compared to the same period in 2021. In total, 42.7 million tonnes was handled in the first seven months of the year. This is 2.1 million higher than in 2019 and a new all-time record.
Containers
Container traffic was 2.1 million TEUs, +0.9% more than in 2021. Full import containers saw growth of +8.3%. This was in part due to the significant increase in trade with the ports of South Korea and Japan, +57% and 35% respectively. These countries were the destination of the last two business missions organised by the port in 2020 and 2021. Export containers recorded a year-on-year fall of 5.7% but maintained the upward trend that began in June.
Solid & liquid bulk
Bulk liquids totalled nearly 9.5 million tonnes up to July, 42.4% more than in 2021. This increase was seen in almost all segments but especially in natural gas and petrol, +83.4% and 139.7%, respectively. Bulk solids were nearly 2.6 million tonnes, down -5.3% overall. This was despite a substantial increase in potash traffic, up +111.7% on last year.
Growth of intermodal transport units (ITUs) was 10.8%, with a total of 254,256 ITUs moved in the first seven months of the year, driven by the cabotage lines with the islands, which grew by nearly 20%.
Passengers
The number of passengers increased to 1.8 million, mainly due to a recovering cruise sector, which in the summer of 2021 resumed routes but with a still minimal number of passengers.
The total number of cruise passengers was just over one million. In this regard, the significant increase in the number of cruise passengers who have Barcelona as their home port stands out, representing almost 60% of the total and already far outnumbering those who only stop over.
In the case of regular ferries, this year the number of passengers has doubled compared to 2021, reaching 793,262 people.
A full cargo traffic report for July 2022 can be accessed here.
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