Julio García
Spain’s ports were the third in the EU with the highest freight traffic in 2023, with a total of 472 million tonnes transported, Eurostat reported today.
According to Eurostat today, the Netherlands handled 545 million tonnes of cargo in 2023, maintaining its position as the leading maritime cargo transport country in the EU.
Italy followed with 501 million tonnes, ahead of Spain with 472 million tonnes. The top three countries recorded decreases in cargo handled compared to 2022, with declines of 7.6%, 1.7% and 3.7%, respectively.
Among the 22 EU countries with available data, 17 recorded decreases in the volume of cargo handled in 2023 compared to 2022. The largest relative declines were recorded in Estonia (-31.0%), Latvia (-21.5%) and Finland (-9.0%).
EU seaports handled around 3.4 billion tonnes of goods (total gross weight) in 2023. This total volume of goods decreased by 3.9% compared to 2022 (3.5 billion tonnes) and increased by 5.0% compared to 2013 (3.2 billion tonnes).
The largest share of goods handled by major EU ports in 2023 (21.0%) was coal and lignite, crude oil and natural gas.
This was followed by coke and petroleum products, which accounted for 16.1% of the total volume.
Metallic minerals and other mining and quarrying products accounted for 7.2%, agricultural, hunting, forestry and fishing products accounted for 6.8% and chemicals, rubber, plastics and nuclear fuel collectively accounted for 6.4%.
Food, beverages and tobacco accounted for 4.7% of total goods handled by EU ports.
