Trade flows passing through the port of Riga in January-October 2011 rose by 12.4% year-over-year, to 28.14 million tons, the Port Authority statistics said.
In the reporting period, coal and oil products transshipment increased by 15% and 23.5%, to 10.97 million and 6.3 million tons, respectively. Handling of timber fell by 9.2% to 2.27 million tons, chemicals volume grew by 21.7% to 1.4 million tons, the volume of ore was down 6% to 606,300 tons, as well as of wood pellets, which dropped by 19% to 835,700 tons. Transshipment of construction materials and scrap metal surged by 44.3% and 54% (395,000mt, 480,800mt), accordingly.
Ten-month container throughput grew by 20.2% to 252,140 TEUs. Passenger traffic increased by 11.6% to 740,420 people. The number of tourists carried by cruise ships rose by 8.7% to 123,218 people.
Latvia-based Free Port of Riga lies on both banks of the River Daugava (Western Dvina), The port encompasses 6.348 hectares, including 13,818-meter waterfront with berths max depths of 16 meters (ship draft - 12.2 m). Transit cargoes account for 80 percent of overall freight traffic moved to / from the CIS countries. In 2010, cargo throughput of the Port of Riga rose 2.5 percent to 30,475,000 tons.