Trade between Serbia and Romania up more than 60% - Constanta Port Day held in Belgrade

Goods traffic between Romania and Serbia, through Constanta Port, grew more than 60% this year from the same period last year, reaching 4.02 million tonnes, CEO of Compania Națională “Administrația Porturilor Maritime” SA Constanța, Valeriu Nicolae Ionescu, said today at the conference Constanta Port Day in New Belgrade's Holiday Inn hotel.

During the first seven months of this year, traffic of goods between Constanta Port and Serbia was at 4.02 million tonnes, 2.36 milllion tonns of which were transported by river. In the same period last year, goods traffic amounted to 2.5 million tonnes, of which 1.5 million tonnes were transported by river.

Overall trade is dominated by grains. Since the beginning of this year until August 15th, a total of 3.03 million tonnes of grains were transported, up from 1.1 million tonnes in the same period last year.

Serbia exports grains via Constanta Port to South Korea, Spain, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Portugal, Netherlands, Tunisia, Italy and Libya. Most port operators have projects aimed at developing the capacity for storing grains, which will surely bring about increase in the transportation of grains.

Through this port in the Black Sea, Serbia also exports metal products to Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Spain and imports coal and coke, fertilizers, iron ores and scrap, non-ferrous ores and scrap, oil products, raw or processed minerals, machines and transport equipments from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Ukraine, Russia, China, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Algeria, Denmark.

The CEO Of Compania Națională “Administrația Porturilor Maritime” SA Constanța underlined that the European Commission had expressed willingness through the EU Strategy for the Danube Region to provide support to projects through co-funding in order to ensure the reliability of navigation on the Danube, that is, through investments in dredging equipment, fairway marking and riverbed surveying.

George Gabriel Visan, commercial director of CN APM SA, stressed that the Memorandum of Understanding between Serbia's Pancevo Port and Constanta Port, signed in 2014, had already produced some results. Based on current indicators, Pancevo Port expects to increase its turnover by 10-15% in 2015.

Pancevo Port is getting more and more queries about transportation to Russia every year, and the most logical and the most affordable way to reach the Russian port of Novorosisk is via Constanta Port on the Danube and then across the Black Sea, he added.

There is an initiative to launch a container line that would be transporting food products to Russia via Constanta Port, but it is now taken in consideration whether Romania would allow that given the embargo imposed on Russia by the EU.

Compania Națională “Administrația Porturilor Maritime” SA Constanța has organized Constanta Port Day in Serbia for the ninth time, bringing together about 200 businessmen from the region, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania.