In the first quarter of this year, for the third quarter traffic of goods in the ports of the 27 nations of the European Union recorded a decline as it amounted to 816.8 million tonnes, down -2.9% from 841.1 million tonnes million tonnes in the third quarter of 2022. With the exception of cargoes handled from the ports of Poland, Greece, Croatia, Denmark and Romania, cargo volumes decreased at ports of all other EU nations.

Nations whose ports in the first quarter of 2023 have handled the largest volume of traffic," Eurostat announced were the Netherlands with 139.5 million tons handled (-1.3%), Turkey with 123.8 million tonnes (-7.5%), Spain with 117.3 million tons (-1.5%), Italy with 106.4 million tonnes (-9.5%), Belgium with 70.1 million tonnes tonnes (-4.0%), Germany with 67.5 million tonnes (-5.1%) and France with 62.0 million tonnes (-9.8%).

Of the 816.8 million tonnes handled in the period January-March 2023, all the main types of cargo marked a reduction with the exception of liquid bulk which, At 309.0 million tonnes, they grew by +1.9%. The The sharpest decline was that of goods containerized vessels, which totaled 178.1 million tons (-9,8%). Rolling stock traffic amounted to €101.3 million tonnes (-4.3%), that of dry bulk by 183.8 million tonnes. tonnes (-2.3%) and other goods traffic of 44.6 million tonnes. tonnes (-3.5%).

With regard to container traffic alone, the only one of the top eight EU container ports to see an increase of this flow of loads both in terms of lost and in terms of 20-foot containers (TEUs) handled was the port of call port of Piraeus, where in the first quarter of 2023 9.0 million tons of containerized cargo were handled (+7.1%) with container handling of 1.12 million TEU (+7.0%). Container traffic at the port is also on the rise of Gioia Tauro when counted in terms of containers from 20' handled, which amounted to 799 thousand TEUs (+8.9%), while result in sharp decline in terms of weight, having stood at 4.7 million tonnes (-15.3%). A sharp decrease in traffic in other major EU ports, with the port of Rotterdam handled 3.15 million TEUs (-10.9%) for a total of 24.4 million tonnes (-11.7%), the port system of Antwerp-Zeebrugge handled 2.86 million TEUs (-5.3%) to 25.8 million tonnes (-6.7%), the port of Hamburg 1.87 million TEU (-16.5%) for 15.0 million tonnes (-14.5%), the port of Algeciras 1.12 million TEUs (-3.6%) for 11.2 million tonnes (-0.6%), the port of Valencia 1.12 million tonnes (-9.2%) 10.2 million tonnes (-11.9%) and the port of Bremerhaven 991 thousand TEUs (-19.6%) for 8.1 million tons of goods in containers (-23.7%).