Marseilles Fos sees rise despite strikes

 

 

Growth in cargo volumes was running at 7% to the end of September before suffering from a slowdown in the world economy and strikes over national port and pension reforms.

 

 

Container throughput rose 9% to 880,222 teu, although deep sea volumes at Fos were particularly hard hit by strike action – the 12% first-half increase was pegged back to 2% -650,446 teu.

 

 

In contrast, intra-Mediterranean trades saw the Marseilles harbour area improve 35% to 229,776 teu.

 

 

Including container tonnage (which was up 8% at 8.6m tonnes), general cargo gained 9% to 14.5 m tonnes. Ro-ro contributed 3.9 m tonnes – a 5% rise based on Tunisian trade and the port’s first-ever Turkey service – while conventional traffic grew 26% to 2m tonnes through exports of steel products.

 

 

Dry bulks soared 42% to 10.6m tonnes on the back of steel industry demand for raw materials, which represented 6.7m tonnes (+69%) of the total. Liquid bulks added 5% for almost 3m tonnes thanks to an upturn in the chemicals industry.