Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 27 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
In January-September, the Baku International Sea Trade Port transshipped 610,000 tons of dry and container cargo compared to 191,000 tons during the same period of 2009, a source at the port said.
According to him, the vast majority of dry goods fall to cement clinker imported from Iran.
Also according to the source, in January-August 7,300 containers were transshipped compared to 1,730 units in January-September of 2009. Most of container traffic transshipment falls to containers of humanitarian supplies sent from Europe to Kazakhstan (Aktau).
"Transshipment of containers this year has significantly increased. Thus, in the first three quarters the port handled 7,300 containers, which is four times more than the last year," the source said.
The transportation of humanitarian goods across the Black Sea, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and across the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, has been underway since March 2009. Their transportation is conducted within the framework of the TRACECA transport corridor in the direction of Afghanistan. The humanitarian goods include medicines, building materials and food products.
According to the source, in January-September of 2010 the port shipped 1.97 million tons of ferry cargo, compared to 1.52 million tons in January-September of 2009.
In 2009, the Baku port shipped 2.5 million tons of oil cargo, which is 10 percent less than in 2008. In total, the port shipped 5.1 million tons of cargo in 2009. Ten-percent increase as a result of 2009 is observed in the transshipment of ferry cargo. The amount of transshipment in this segment amounted to 2,3 million tons. Also compared to 2008, last year transshipment of dry cargo increased twice through the port and reached 300,000 tons.
Earlier the source said, in 2008 the Baku port transshipped about 6 million tons of various cargoes. Of the total volume of transshipped cargo in 2008, about 3 million tons accounted for petroleum and petroleum products, and the remaining 3 million tons accounted for freight on following ferries (Baku-Turmenbashi, Turkmenbashi-Baku, Baku-Aktau and Aktau-Baku).