The Port of Antwerp is on course to handle more than 200 million tonnes of freight and nine million TEU. In comparison with 2014, nearly 8% more containers will be transhipped.
With these growth figures, Antwerp is performing significantly better than Rotterdam and Hamburg, the number one and three ports respectively in North-West Europe.
From 2004 to 2015, the freight volume expanded by 50 million tonnes, and confirms Antwerp’s position as the second-largest port in Europe.
The third round of deepening of the Scheldt quickly brought results, with the record for the largest container carrier ever to visit the port being regularly broken.
There has been a huge amount of investment in the Port of Antwerp over the past decade, not only by private companies at national and international level but also by public bodies.
According to current forecasts Antwerp will need new container handling capacity by 2020-2021, and so the Port Authority is making urgent preparations for the first phase of a new tidal dock with associated terminal capacity on the left bank of the Scheldt.