Valenciaport has ended the year 2016 with container traffic of 4,722,273 TEU, a figure that represents an increase of 2.32% and means exceeding its best historical record.
These positive figures were due to an increase in foreign container traffic, which rose by 4.99%, consolidating the site as the best platform for Spanish foreign trade by sea. Specifically, containerized exports increased by 4.96% with a total of 1,105,438 TEU while imports went up by 5.03% to 1,105,978 TEUs. Container transit traffic has ended the year with a light increase of 0.08%.
In terms of total traffic, the three ports managed by the Port Authority of Valencia (Valencia, Sagunto and Gandia) increased by 1.71% over the previous year, with a total of 71,280,984 tonnes handled. Foreign trade increased with import-export rising by 1.93% to a total traffic of 21,434,954 tonnes. Exports recorded a rise of 0.61%, to a total of 13,738,607 tonnes, thanks to good registrations of countries such as China (+ 7.22%), United States (+ 9.96%) and Morocco (+ 1.43%). Meanwhile, imports rose by 4.39% to 7,696,347 tonnes due to the results of countries such as France (+ 2.14%), the United States (+ 8.18%) and India (+ 29.82%) stand out. In terms of transit traffic, figures went up by 1.38% during 2016.
Containerised general cargo recorded a rise of 2.91%, with total traffic standing at 53,786,327 tonnes. This growth is motivated by goods such as the construction materials which rose by 2.29% to 5.33 million tonnes; other goods which went up by 4.76% to 2.11 million tonnes; and chemical products which increased by 9.47% to 1.81 million tonnes.
Conventional general cargo decreased by 0.78% in 2016. In total, during this year, 10,749,993 tonnes of this type of goods have been handled. This decrease is mainly due to the decline in steel products, which fell by 4.57% to 1.84 million tonnes. Conversely, cars and their parts registered and increase of 10.69% to 1.54 million tonnes. A breakdown of this traffic revealed that the ports of Valencia and Sagunto handled 774,708 vehicles in 2016, up 12.37% on the previous year. These figures consolidate Valenciaport as one of the main logistics platforms in Spain for the automotive sector. Similarly, ro-ro traffic grew by 4.33% to 8,914,957 tonnes.