By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOT Seaports are key to Europe’s economy. Approximately 90 percent of Europe’s international trade is conducted via its seaports, as well as 40 percent of intra-European Union trade. In Northwestern Europe, competition is intense between the Port of Rotterdam and the Ports of Antwerp, Hamburg, and—to a lesser extent—Amsterdam and Le Havre. Antwerp and Hamburg compete with Rotterdam for container throughput. Amsterdam competes in the coal segment and Le Havre in crude oil. Competition is keen in the chemical sector with Antwerp being Rotterdam’s main competitor. Competition is particularly keen because of these ports’ deep-water location, world-class terminals, availability of space, access to a range of hinterland connections (roads, inland waterways, railways, pipelines), quality service, costs, and an attractive business and living climate. All vie to get their of the European market of 500 million consumers. Port of Rotterdam With a throughput of roughly 420 million tonnes per year, the Port of Rotterdam remains the largest logistics and industrial hub in Europe. Like everywhere this last year, however, volumes there declined significantly due to the worldwide economic crisis. “In our case, the decline in volume is large: some -11 percent, but considerably less than compared to our competitors,” comments Minco van Heezen, Port of Rotterdam spokesman. For the first nine months of this year, cargo handled by the port decreased 11.9 percent to 283 million tonnes. Almost every type of cargo displayed negative growth: iron and scrap metal, -56 percent; agribulk, -18 percent; coal, -17 percent; other dry bulk, -19 percent; crude oil, -7 percent; other liquid bulk, -19 percent; containers, -12 percent; roll on/roll off, -13 percent) and other general cargo, -23 percent. Only petroleum products showed growth—and strong growth at that, increasing by 21 percent to 22 million tonnes. As a result, the total throughput of liquid bulk remained virtually constant at 147 million tonnes. ‘There is still a hefty decrease in terms of percentages,” says Hans Smits, Port of Rotterdam Authority CEO, “But the trend curve has started turning slightly upwards again since July.” Like ports worldwide, Rotterdam is feeling the effects of the overall rationalization of Asia services. “Because a lot of the Asian lines concentrate on larger ships calling in Rotterdam instead of Antwerp—and to a lesser extent Hamburg, we probably suffer most from the decline in intra-European traffic, especially short sea containers,” van Heezen remarks. But he contends that feeder traffic is going well because of Rotterdam’s concentration of main line ships. “But the container transport to and from South America has been hit hard, as well as conventional cargo and break-bulk, especially steel and metals,” he says. Environmental concerns remain the port’s No. 1 concern for the time being. “Retaining and attracting jobs is our main concern in the long term,” van Heezen adds. Despite this year’s figures, the port continues to position itself for a competitive future. Work on Maasvlakte 2 continues. “We are keeping our investments, especially the building of Maasvlakte 2, on the planned level of 2-3 billion Euro for the period 2008-2015,” van Heezen says. The same applies to the 2 billion Euro investments being made by the national government and the some 9 billion Euro being made by private companies. “It is possible, however, that the exact division of investments will change,” he adds. “For example, there could be more for industry and less for containers.” Work on Maasvlakte 2 is on schedule. Next year work will begin on the quay for the first container terminal. If all goes according to plan, the first ship will be able to dock in 2013. In July, work also commenced on expanding the infrastructure of Broekman DistriPort at the Brittanniëhaven in the Botlek area, an investment that is costing roughly $20 million. The