Courtney Tower | Jan 05, 2011 2:13PM EST
The Port of Montreal reported a 6.1 percent increase in container traffic for 2010, outpacing growth in dry and liquid bulk cargoes.
Speaking at the 172nd annual ceremony honoring the first ship to enter the port in the new year, Sylvie Vachon, president and CEO of the Montreal Port Authority, said preliminary figures for all of 2010 show containerized volume of 1.32 million 20-foot-equivalent units, up 6.1 percent from 2009. Tonnage carried in those containers increased 6.2 percent to almost 12 million tons.
Container traffic accounts for more than half the port's volume, with about half of those containers destined for or originating from the United States.
Overall volume should be up 4.4 percent for the year, Vachon said, with dry bulk rising 5.6 percent to 5.6 million metric tons, and liquid bulk up 3.2 percent to 8.0 million tons.
The results bring the port within 10 percent of 2008 volumes, the last full year before the global recession struck and Montreal's best year in 25 years, Vachon said.
Vachon was speaking at the port's annual ceremony awarding a gold-headed cane to the first oceangoing ship arriving in the new year. Capt. Vikram Manchanda, master of the Bermuda-flag ship Power and operated by Hapag-Lloyd, accepted this year's award before the ship departed for the port for Algeciras, Spain.
Contact Courtney Tower at ctower@sympatico.ca.
