The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has recorded a 6.79% year-on-year uptick in container numbers across its trade hubs during the month of June, handling 685,645 TEUs in comparison to 642,024 TEUs in 2022, according to the company's release.
Monthly statistics further show a 9.90% surge in exported containers from 192,507 TEUs to 211,568 TEUs last month, with imported boxes edging up a slight 0.12% to 205,046 TEUs over last year’s tally of 204,798 TEUs. Transshipments shared a similar trend, with a 9.93% spike to 269,031 TEUs against 244,719 TEUs a year earlier.
Food commodities passing through Mawani’s ports hit a total of 1,858,175 tons, beating the previous year’s throughput of 1,574,632 tons by 18.01%. Livestock imports, on the other hand, have seen the best growth trend among all categories with a 101.1% leap from 990,190 to 1,991,248 cattle heads during June 2023. Likewise, automobile units coming into the Kingdom shot up by 5.87% to 68,511 vehicles when compared to last year’s 64,713 vehicles.
Cargo volumes, however, plummeted by 6.23% to 25,320,536 tons from 27,003,127 tons in the year before. These figures comprise 675,449 tons of general cargo, 4,194,465 tons of dry bulk cargo, and 13,199,403 tons of liquid bulk cargo.
The Kingdom’s ports also witnessed a 4.75% rise in vessel traffic, berthing 993 ships this year in contrast to 948 ships a year ago. Similarly, 67,579 travelers used the country’s maritime gateways in the past month, up 58.26% over the preceding year’s 42,701 pax.
The national maritime regulator has adopted a series of industry-leading innovations to automate and optimize overall productivity and efficiency as part of efforts to build a 40-million-TEU-strong ports network within the Kingdom, which represents a crucial step in transforming the country into global logistics destination as envisioned by the National Transport and Logistics Strategy (NTLS).