The Riga port leads other Latvian ports by handling of coal in the first four months of the year 2009 as it has reloaded 5.07 million tons of coal in January-April this year at a 12.4% growth year-on-year, reported BNS the Latvian Transport Ministry.
Of all coal reloaded at the Latvian ports in the first four months of this year, 69.1% were handled by the Riga port.
The Ventspils port in north-western Latvia handled 2.232 million tons coal in January-April 2009, which is a growth by 52% from the same period last year. Coal handled by the Ventspils port accounts for 30.4% of the total amount of coal reloaded by the Latvian ports in the first four months of this year.
Other Latvian ports handled insignificant amounts of coal in January-April 2009.
All in all, 7.335 million tons of coal were reloaded at the Latvian ports in the first four months of this year, which is a growth by 22.7% from the same period last year when total coal handling was 5.979 million tons.
During the whole 2008 the Latvian ports reloaded 18.322 million tons of coal at a 25.7% rise from 2007.
There are three large and seven small ports in Latvia.