Number of shipping containers in Saudi ports rises 21.14 pct year-on-year

The volume of shipping containers handled by Saudi ports rose by 21.14 percent year-on-year in March, the Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) said on Wednesday.

A total of 693,523 20-foot-containers were handled by the country’s ports in March 2023 compared with 572,475 in March 2022.

Mawani statistics revealed a 17.74 percent increase in exports, which reached 195,495 in March of this year compared with 166,045 the previous year.

Imports surged by 37.05 percent to 224,221 containers, up from 162,876 containers in 2022.

Ports handled a total of 26,102,998 tons of cargo in March 2023, including 523,513 tons of general cargo, 4,588,115 tons of liquid bulk cargo, and 13,594,542 tons of dry bulk cargo.

This total tonnage represents a 5.81 percent increase from March 2022.

Food commodities also soared by 37.52 percent from 1,487,327 tons in 2022 to 2,045,428 tons this year.

Livestock tonnage clocked the highest figures with a 496.26 percent annual leap from 104,592 to 623,644 cattle heads.

A total of 76,086 vehicles were imported through the Kingdom’s ports this March, up 11.42 percent from last year’s total of 68,287 units.

Additionally, 984 vessels arrived on Saudi shores in March 2023, a 12.59 percent increase from March 2022’s tally of 874 ships.

Passenger traffic also increased by 21.16 percent year-on-year to reach 104,575 people, up from 86,308 the previous March.