Santos heads Latin American ports

Latest figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) detail a 6.8% drop in numbers of containers handled in the 20 leading ports in South America last year.

The ECLAC ranking remains headed by Santos, with 2.25m teu, despite suffering a drop of 15.7% compared with 2008.

In second and third place, with 2.21m teu and 2m teu respectively, were the Panamanian ports of Colón and Balboa. Both suffered a downturn in traffic while only five ports in the top 20 actually increased throughput on the year in respect of 2008. However, these five benefited from increased trade in empty containers.

Chile, for its part, experienced a 10.9% overall decline in box traffic, from 3.1m teu to 2.7m teu .

The leading Chilean box port was San Antonio, which handled 729,033 teu, a rise of 6%. This was followed by Valparaiso with 677,432 teu, a drop of 28.46%.

In third place, with 494,329 teu, was Talcahuano-San Vicente, which lost 18.24%.
(Source:www.portstrategy.com)