Valenciaport begins the first month of the year with positive figures for both freight and container traffic, according to the company's release. Exports are once again the key to this good start to the year and confirm the importance and the work being carried out by the business fabric of the Valencian Community and Spain in the activation of the economy and the generation of wealth. The first figures for 2021, according to the advance of the basic magnitudes of Valenciaport, show that the total of products mobilised has amounted to 7,712,049 tonnes and that of TEUs (standard 20-foot container) has been 467,103, numbers that represent an increase of 8.36% and 4.35% respectively. This January, a month complicated by the incidence of the Covid-19 pandemic, follows the trend of the last five months of 2020 when Valenciaport’s traffic recorded positive increases in both container and freight movements.
Once again, the growth in full containers (+4.18%) stands out, especially those dedicated to cargo (export) which recorded an increase of 11.79%, demonstrating the dynamism of the productive capacity of Valenciaport’s hinterland. In fact, this percentage is at the levels of the period August-December 2020 when the average annual growth of export TEUs was 11%, a figure which confirms that the export activity of the business fabric of the Valencia Region and Spain has become the driving force behind economic activation. Regarding unloading containers (imports), the month began with a slight decrease of 0.53%, while transit containers grew by 3.33% and empty containers by 4.89%.
Thus, the work of the port community and the companies that provide logistics services as indispensable agents in the export chain must be highlighted, and the role played by Valenciaport as a tractor port for the export/import of the business fabric. The fact is that the ports managed by the Port Authority of Valencia (PAV) are the main channel for the goods and services industry, through which 60% of the goods entering and leaving Spain pass on their way to one of the 1,000 ports with which the Valencian port area is connected.
The total amount of goods operated by Valenciaport was more than 81 million tonnes, a figure that shows a growth of 0.5% compared to the same period of the previous year, breaking the negative trend that characterised 2020, which was marked by significant decreases, especially in the most complicated months of confinement (May-June). About the total number of containers, in this annual balance as of January 2021 the number has been 5,447,793, a very similar figure, as the difference between one period and the other is 1,693 TEUs, a decrease of 0.03%.