However, this year the market looks much stronger preserving the recovery trends observed at the second half of 2016. Imports, exports and cabotage have demonstrated a double-digit growth.
Import volumes in the first quarter of 2017 increased 12.4%, to 458 810 TEU. It is worth noting that this increase was achieved due to a rise of 14.2% in loaded imports, whereas importing empty boxes decreased by 9.1%.
Export volumes of 456 350 TEU also grew 12.3% as compared to the first quarter of 2016. And here also we mark a growth of 13.6% in loaded exports.
Cabotage increased by 11.1%, to 145 420 TEU. Transit containers slipped 16.2%, to 10 380 TEU.
The growth was observed in all Russian port regions, except for the Arctic facilities, where throughput of 33 080 TEU was 8.4% lower than in Q1 2016.
The Far Eastern ports have demonstrated a tremendous growth of 29.8%, up to 324 190 TEU, finally reversing the two-year downward tendency. In Q1 2016 the ports handled 250 th. TEU, -19.4% to 2015 and closed year 2016 with volumes still down -2.06%.
The Baltic ports, which are Russia’s largest in terms of container throughput, handled 531 530 TEU (+5.2%), making up 49.6% of the country’s total container volumes, whereas the Far Eastern ports account for 30.3%.
The Black Sea ports handled 181 410 TEU, which is 9.3% more than last year. The Caspian ports also showed a significant growth of 16%, although from a low base (740 TEU).
In 2016, Russian ports handled 3.99 mln TEU, up by 1.4% as compared to 2015: export – 1.64 mln TEU, import – 1.67 mln TEU, cabotage – 0.64 mln TEU, transit – 0.05 mln TEU.