ASOP sees no dramatic impact of sanctions on throughput of Russia’s container terminals

Seaports of the North West region of Russia see a slight decline of container throughput from QII’2014 due to general slowdown of economic growth and restrictions on import of food products from Europe. 

According to comments provided to IAA PortNews by the Association of Commercial Sea Ports (ASOP), “sanctions had no dramatic impact on the throughput of container terminals as the majority of import cargoes from the EU used to be delivered by automobile transport. Moreover, possible phasing out of European products with the supplies from the Latin America would mean an additional load for ports”.   

As for ruble devaluation, ASOP experts say that, on the one hand, it will influence the consumer demand; on the other hand, it will contribute to the attractiveness of routes delivering cargoes to the Central Russia from the Far Eastern ports.  
“In general, the share of the North Western ports still exceeds 50% of the entire container market of Russia and it is not likely to change crucially in the future. The Southern Basin is developing and the Far East demonstrated stable growth in the first half of the year though it lost a little in August-September,” ASOP told IAA PortNews.    

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