Foreign sea transport drops 2% in 2019

The goods volume of foreign sea transport totalled 101.3 million tonnes in 2019, posting a two per cent drop year on year, according to the Statistics Finland.

Exports grew by one per cent over the year to 53.3 million tonnes, while imports fell by six per cent to 48.0 million tonnes.

A total of 19.1 million persons were transported in passenger traffic, which is about half a per cent more than that in 2018.

More than 90 per cent of the passengers transported by sea travelled on the routes to Estonia and Sweden. A total of 3.3 million transport equipment were transported last year, 64 per cent of which were private cars belonging to passengers.

Out of the goods volume of foreign sea transport, transit transport made up nine per cent or nine million tonnes. General cargo was transported the most, in total 17.5 million tonnes, followed by 11.9 million tonnes of crude oil.

The type of goods imported most was crude oil, which represented 25 per cent of all goods imported by sea. Oil products, general cargo, and paper were exported the most. These types of goods formed 48 per cent of all goods exports in sea transport.

The busiest ports for goods transport were Sköldvik, HaminaKotka, Helsinki, Kokkola, and Rauma. The largest import ports were Sköldvik, Helsinki, Naantali, Raahe, and HaminaKotka. The biggest export ports were HaminaKotka, Sköldvik, Helsinki, Kokkola and Rauma.

A total of 13 million tonnes of goods were transported in containers through Finnish ports in 2019. The figure was 1.4 per cent lower than that in 2018. The number of containers transported was 922,471 (1,617,879 Twenty Equivalent Units (TUEs) containers.

Exports of goods transported in containers grew by 1.8 per cent, measured in tonnes, and imports fell by eight per cent compared with that in 2018.

A total of 19.1 million people were transported in passenger traffic in 2019. In all, nine million persons travelled between Finland and Estonia and 8.6 million between Finland and Sweden. Altogether, 0.2 million passengers were transported between Finland and Russia and 0.2 million passengers between Finland and Germany.