Abu Dhabi Ports has seen volume increases across all of its different import and export trades in the first quarter of 2015, with its flagship Khalifa Port Container Terminal handling 302,151 TEUs for the period, a 35% boost year-on-year.
Abu Dhabi Ports says one of the reasons behind this increase is the number of new shipping lines calling at the port and new connections to ports around the region and the world. Currently, there are 100 direct connections to global ports and over 36 shipping lines calling at the company’s terminals.
General and bulk cargo volumes at Khalifa Port, Musaffah Port and Zayed Port increased by 32% in the first quarter of 2015, compared to 2014.
”Last year our general and bulk cargo increased by 37 percent over the entire year. This trend looks set to continue looking at our latest figures, as containers, general and bulk cargo have all increased by more than 30 percent to date,” Capt. Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO, Abu Dhabi Ports , said.
”This healthy growth is the result of increased import/export activity around various industrial development projects in the emirate and work resuming on some of the Emirates major infrastructure projects.”
So far, the ports have handled a total of 3,519,714 freight tonnes of general and bulk cargo in the first quarter of 2015, compared with 2,663,129 FT in the same period last year.
The Khalifa Port RORO hub saw a 4.7% growth in volumes compared to last year. In Q1 2015, 25,709 vehicles were imported into the Emirate compared with 24,542 in the same period last year.
The 2014-2015 cruise season which ran from October until May also recorded a significant increase for Q1 2015, up 32% compared with the same period last year. 115,796 cruise passengers visited the Emirate during the 2014-2015 season, compared with 87,713 passengers last year.