Romania's waterway freight grows in 2010, cereal shipments see biggest increase

Traffic on the Constanta County waterways in southeastern Romania, specifically along the Danube - Black Sea Canal and the Poarta Alba - Midia Navodari Canal, grew by 4.8 million tonnes in volume in by 3 million tonnes of freight 2010 compared to 2009. At the beginning with 2000, the external cargo traffic has followed an upward trend, outperforming in 2010 for the second consecutive year the domestic cargo traffic, according to Valentin Zeicu, manager of the National Company 'Constanta Waterways Administration" SA (CNACN), quoted by Agerpres. "The largest cargo volume in the international traffic came from Hungary, with approximately 2,5 million tonnes of freight, followed by Serbia with two million tonnes of freight and Bulgaria, with one million tonnes. In 2010, cereal shipments increased by 20 percentage points compared with 2009, hitting a volume of 4.37 million tonnes of freight and accounting for the highest share of the freight carried along waterways,' Zeicu said. As far as the domestic traffic is concerned, the resumption of shipments of raw material to the Galati steel mill (eastern Romania) has doubled the quantity of transported iron ore compared to 2009 to 2.21 million tonnes of freight. Also, the relaunch of the activity of the Tulcea aluminium plant (eastern Romania), as well as of the similar profile facilities in Serbia and Hungary, has boosted the transport of bauxite, taking non-ferrous ores freight to over one million tonnes in 2010. "At the same time, 2010 also confirmed the steady growth in the traffic of oil products, which reached about 500,000 tonnes of freight; overall, last year's traffic statistics confirm the bounce-back of waterways traffic, giving us reason to anticipate an even steeper growth in volume for 2011, which would be the sign that the national economy and the Danube riparian countries have emerged from the crisis," concluded Valentin Zeicu. AGERPRES