After the Port of Riga invested 90 million euro the last 20 years to improve its infrastructure, it is now ready to accommodate large ships. Namely, the size of ships has been growing in the Port of Riga, especially during the past decade.
As cargo owners want to reduce their costs and carry out shipments using ships with a greater deadweight capacity, the Port of Riga wants to benefit from this situation.
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In 2010 the Port of Riga accepted 110 ships with the deadweight capacity of more than 50,000 tons, while last year their number was 214. The main reason for the increase in the size of ships is the desire by cargo carriers for cheaper shipments, while the recent rapid increase is related to the reconstruction of the Panama Canal.
These ships require deeper and wider navigation canals. For this reason, the Port of Riga has invested almost 90 million euros over 20 years, in dredging work, IT infrastructure, navigation systems and employee training.
In 2017 the port handled almost 3 times more cargo than in 1997, despite the fact that the total number of incoming merchant ships dropped from 4,029 in 1997 to 3,422 in 2017.
Jānis Kasalis, Deputy CEO of SIA Rīgas universālais termināls, noted:
In order to handle large ships quickly, we need greater railway and road transport capacity, as well as larger warehouses and modern handling technologies. Likewise, we have invested almost EUR 10M in the extension of the pier to enable the terminal to accept larger ships and operate under new competitive conditions.
In addition, comprehensive cargo containerisation is growing in cargo shipments across the world. Companies operating in the Port of Riga are also conducting cargo containerisation by developing and improving cargo processing and handling technologies.
One of these technologies is the so-called “loading plate. This technology enables placing cargo on the specially designed “plate” quickly and effectively and loading it into the container automatically.
