In July, the port of Barcelona maintained the dynamism of recent months and freight traffic has already accumulated 11% growth. The entity reported yesterday through a statement that "full container traffic continues to rise thanks to the growth of trade with the United States and countries in the Far East, such as South Korea and Japan." Parallel to the good behavior of the containers, there was an increase in the percentage of cruise passengers who have their base port in Barcelona (60% of the total) compared to those who only make a stopover, reported the Port.
In relation to merchandise, in the first seven months of the year, 42.7 million tons were moved. The figure for the period was 2.1 million higher than that of 2019 and represents a new historical record, according to data from the port. In this way, the Barcelona infrastructure consolidates the recovery of port activity.
Compared to last year, when traffic was still affected by the pandemic, growth was 0.9%. The port also analyzed the origin of the containers. The full imports maintain the positive trend, with growth of 8.3%, thanks in part to the significant increase in exchanges with the ports of South Korea and Japan, which grew by 57% and 35% respectively. The port wanted to highlight yesterday that this improvement in these two markets has occurred just after two organized business missions were carried out in 2020 and 2021. For its part, export containers registered a year-on-year drop of 5.7 %. The port clarified that the decrease occurs while maintaining the upward trend that began in June after several months of falls, especially marked at the beginning of the year.
As for the number of passengers who passed through the port of Barcelona in the January-July period, it continues to rise after the drop caused by the pandemic and has increased to 1.8 million. The growth is mainly due to the recovery of activity in the cruise sector, which in the summer of 2021 resumed routes, but with a still minimal number of passengers, the entity reported. The total number of cruise passengers who passed through Barcelona in the first seven months of the year slightly exceeded one million. In the case of regular line ferries, this year the number of passengers doubled, to 793,262 people.
