Nine-month box volume up 16pc at Finland's Rauma port to 187,994 TEU

THE Finnish Port of Rauma, 200 miles north west of Helsinki, handled 187,994 TEU in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 16.3 per cent compared to the same period last year.

From January to September, the facility handled 181,096 TEU in foreign trade, up 14.7 per cent year on year, while domestic traffic soared 81 per cent to 6,898 TEU in the nine-month period.

Despite the rising container volumes and the 14 per cent rise in ro-ro business (handling 2,212 trailers), the port's total turnover decreased by 3.1 per cent year on year to 4.51 million tonnes, reports Gdynia's Baltic Transport Journal.

While exports increased by 1.5 per cent to 3.02 million tonnes, imports went down by 10.2 per cent to 1.41 million tonnes and domestic traffic plunging 27.8 per cent to 82,000 tonnes. However, the port recorded a phenomenal growth in the total tonnage of coal handled, which sky-rocketed by more than 7,240 per cent to 14,028 tonnes.