Freight traffic through Baltic ports this January rose by 2.8% from the same period last year, up to 11.858 million tons, RZD-Partner.Ru reports citing the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia.

The share of Latvian ports in total handled volumes is 42.1%, Lithuania’s - 26.9%, Estonia’s - 31%. However, in January 2010, the Latvian ports has had a 10.4% drop in cargo volumes from January 2009, to 4.995 million tons of cargo, while Lithuanian ports increased transshipment by 9.1%, to 3.184 million tons, Estonia to 3.679 million tons of cargo, or a 21% rise over January 2009.

Port of Tallinn turned out the leading port, reported 3.114 million tons of handled cargo, a 25.3-percent growth. Port of Klaipeda port transshipped 2.53 million tons (a 14.1% rise), the Port of Ventspils - 2.369 million tons, (a 10-percent drop).

In 2009 the Baltic countries ports handled 136.636 million tons of cargo, 1.5% down from 2008’s numbers. Last year Latvian ports’ share was 45.4% of the total volumes, Lithuanian ports – 26.5% and Estonian ports - 28.2%.