Thanks to the strengthening of the growth of the traffic of the container occurred in the third quarter, continued the Growth trend in the traffic of goods handled by the system port of Antwerp-Bruges in place since the beginning of 2024. In the first nine months of this year, the total handled was equal to 210.5 million tonnes, up +3.0% on the same period of 2023. In the containerized goods segment alone, the traffic was 112.3 million tons (+8.9%) and was has been achieved with a handling of containers equal to over 10.1 million TEUs (+8.6%). Conventional freight traffic, with a total of 7.5 million tons, has suffered a decline by -4.8%, with a decrease of -0.6% in iron and steel - announced the port authority of the Belgian port - due to Lower demand from steel processing sectors such as construction and automotive. The products forestry (-32.9%), paper and pulp (-22.6%) and materials (-36.95), while fruit volumes increased, vegetables and other refrigerated goods (+4.1%). Traffic of rolling stock, with 15.1 million tonnes, marked a reduction of -5.5%, as well as the traffic of new cars that stood at almost 2.4 million vehicles (-11.4%).

In the first nine months of 2024 it was less pronounced the decrease in bulk volumes. In the bulk sector 11.1 million dry waste were handled globally tons, with a decrease of -1.4% mainly generated by the strong reduction in coal volumes (-55.3%), while products energy pellets increased by +9.5%. Growing fertilizers (+30.6%) were also found, as were other building materials (+7.3%) and non-ferrous minerals (+4.8%), while sand and gravel (+0.1%) and scrap (-0.7%). In the liquid bulk segment, the total was 64.6 million tonnes (-2.5%), with reductions in volumes of liquid fuels (-8.9%) and liquefied natural gas (-10.2%) and with an increase in chemicals (+9.3%) driven by by the increase in biofuels (+52.5%).

The growth in cruise traffic was significant, as there were 413 thousand (+17.5%) passengers in the first nine months of this year totalled with the calls of 143 cruise ships, ten more ships than in the same period of 2023.

In the third quarter of 2024 alone, the Belgian port system handled a total of about 67.3 million tons of goods, with an increase of +3% on the same period of last year year. In the container sector alone, traffic was 38.1 million tons (+13%) with a handling of containers equal to 3.5 million TEUs (+13%).