In the third quarter of 2023, cargo traffic in ports of Tunisia decreased by -5.6% to 6.90 million tonnes compared to 7.31 million in the same period last year. The decline was driven by the -9.3% decrease in unloading cargo volumes to 4.24 million tonnes, while those at loading are grew by +1.0% to 2.66 million tonnes.

The reduction in total traffic was contained by the Hydrocarbons up +24.2% to €2.30 million tonnes, while other types of cargo recorded A decrease: other liquid bulk amounted to 179 thousand tonnes (-31.2%), cereals at 946 thousand tonnes (-5.1%), other dry bulk at 1.36 million tonnes (-21.3%) and miscellaneous goods at 2.01 million tons (-18.5%), of which 932 thousand tonnes of containerised goods (-11.7%) totalled with a Container handling equal to 111 thousand TEUs (-7.7%) 452 thousand tons of rolling stock (-16.3%) and 628 thousand tons of other goods miscellaneous (-28.1%).

In the third quarter of this year, the largest volume of goods was was handled by the port of Rades which totalled 1.56 million tons (+1.9%) followed by the ports of Skhira with 1.50 million tonnes (+67.9%), Sfax with 1.30 million tonnes (+24.8%), Bizerte with 903 thousand tons (-48.3%), Gabes with 810 thousand tons (-12.6%), Sousse with 311 thousand tons (-51.7%), Zarzis with 271 thousand tons (-6.7%) and the Goulette with 241 thousand tons (+5,2%).

In the passenger sector, scheduled maritime services have handled 442 thousand passengers in Tunisian ports (-5.7%), while the Cruise passenger traffic was 80,000 (+79,0%).

In the first nine months of 2023, the total freight traffic was 22.62 million tonnes, an increase of +6.2% compared to the same period last year, of which 13.76 million tonnes at landing (+4.0%) and 8.86 million tonnes at tonnes at loading (+9.9%).