A slight decrease was recorded in August in the handling of containers from piers II and III in the country’s largest port, Piraeus, which is managed by the Piraeus Container Terminal (PCT).
The decline was mainly focused on transit cargo and not on domestic which showed profitable results. The geopolitical developments in the Red Sea, from the ongoing attacks by the Houthis against international shipping, continue to cause turbulence in the movement of cargo internationally, since almost all containerships for the old continent choose the circumnavigation of Africa with changes in itineraries and container arrivals in European ports.
According to data published by Cosco Shipping Ports, in August 2024 a total of 393 thousand containers were handled from piers II and III managed by the Piraeus Container Terminal, compared to 410 thousand in the same month of 2023, marking a drop of 4.3%.
In January-August 2024, the handling of containers from piers II and III fell by 10.7% compared to the same period in 2023.
In total, 2.720 million containers were handled in the eight months of this year, compared to 3.046 million in the same period last year. Traffic exceeded 50,000 containers at pier I in August, while it reached 360,000 TEUs in January-August.
Internationally
The total handling of containers in the 36 ports controlled by Cosco Shipping Ports, a member of the Cosco Shipping Group, continued to increase in August by 6.6%, (9.909 million containers against 9.259 million in the same month of 2023).
At the eight-month level, a total of 73.727 million containers were handled by Cosco’s 36 ports, compared to 68.548 million in the corresponding period of 2023, an increase of 7.6%.
In terms of handling in China, terminals in the Yangtze River Delta region performed particularly well, with an increase in Nantong Tonghai Port Co., Ltd. and CSP Wuhan Terminal by 73.0% and 75.1% respectively.
Overseas terminals continued to show steady signs of growth and recovery, with traffic increasing by 5.5% in August 2024, while CSP Abu Dhabi, CSP Spain and CSP Zeebrugge all performed well, with an increase of 26.5%, 13.0% and 82.6%, respectively.
