In the previous nine months of the year, container throughput in the Port of Rotterdam grew by 2.2%, and port officials said this reflected signs of a “temporary” recovery in global trade. Port chief executive Budwayne Simmons noted in a statement on Wednesday that consumer confidence has driven a rise in container throughput, but Rotterdam still faces huge challenges from geopolitics and global supply chains.
AS EUROPE'S LARGEST CONTAINER PORT, ROTTERDAM HANDLED 1040 MILLION STANDARD BOXES FROM JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER, SLIGHTLY AHEAD OF ITS NEIGHBOUR ANTWERP BRUGES, WHICH INCREASED THROUGHPUT BY NEARLY 7% OVER THE SAME PERIOD TO 1015 MILLION STANDARD BOXES. Rotterdam said consumer spending in Europe had recovered, especially after a period of low purchasing power, and inventories had also returned to their pre-pandemic normal levels. However, the port also noted that industrial production in Europe has not fully recovered and exports of manufactured goods such as capital goods and automotive parts remain lagging. Rotterdam's total imports in the previous nine months reached 540 million standard cases, up 3% year-on-year and exports grew by 1.3% to close to 500 million standard cartons. Despite the early peak season in summer driving growth, some routes were diverted to other ports in September, suppressing container throughput in October.
Despite the Port of Rotterdam indicating that congestion has improved, Dexon's SeaExplorer platform shows that the average waiting time per ship for the past 7 days remained 1.39 days, while large ships are severely congested due to the docking of containers, and the multi-carrier Contargo operates a connection between Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges. The hub and inland ports have a network of barges whose customers are told that the current average wait time for barges has reached 81 hours.
Rotterdam said that while limited ship capacity had reduced the number of stops, overloaded vessels caused ports and marinas to be under peak pressure. As for the rest of the freight sector, Rotterdam performed poorly in the previous nine months; compared to the same period in 2023, dry bulk shipments decreased by 0.9%, liquid bulk decreased by 1.7%, and single-item miscellaneous goods decreased by 4.7%.
“Unfortunately, the drop in throughput in other areas indicates that European industry's competitiveness remains weak due to high energy costs, and we expect no significant change in commodity flows for the remaining few months of the year,” Simmons concludes.
