Ports: Valencia rose to fourth place, Piraeus dropped to fifth in Europe in 2021

And officially the port of Valencia (Port Authority of Valencia-PAV) in 2021, was in fourth place in Europe in container traffic behind Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg, and in front of Piraeus which remains fifth, as reported in a relevant announcement of the Spanish port.

Also in its announcement, the port of Valencia records the same problem that Piraeus also has, according to Cosco, that of "saturation", as pointed out by the president of PAV, Aurelio Martínez, "we are close to our maximum capacity of 7 , 5 million TEU and, when there is a lot of business burden, these constraints are already perceived. That is why the new northern container terminal is necessary if we want to continue to be a port of reference for world traffic."

We do not know what the residents of Valencia say about these plans, in Piraeus, however, the reactions of the surrounding municipalities are great as concerns the possibility of creating a fourth pier.

Piraeus, controlled by Cosco, showed in 2021 at all three piers (two of the PCU and one of the PPA) a decrease as reported by the information by approximately 120,000 Teu (-2.2%) compared to 2020, year which had handled a total of 5,437,477 million TEU and had, then, taken 4th place in Europe. With around 5,317,470 Teu in 2021, it is now in fifth place as the port of Valencia handled 5,604,478 TEU last year, an increase of 3.25% compared to 2020 and 3% compared to 2019.

According to the relevant announcement, PAV, this achievement came about mainly thanks to the imports and exports of Spanish companies. Full load containers (exports) increased by 13.89% and full unload containers (imports) by 17.38% compared to the previous year. On the other hand, transit TEUs fell by 3.45%. China is Valenciaport's main trading...