Durres port exports double in 2010

TIRANA, Jan. 26 – Exports through Durres Port in 2010 doubled to 1.3 million tonnes of ‘Made in Albania’ products, the Durres Port Authority said in a statement. Around 2.1 million tonnes of imported goods arrived in the country’s biggest port in 2010.
Data show an average of 100,000 tonnes of Made in Albania products were handled from Durres port each month to Mediterranean ports. Albania exported more than 390,000 tonnes of chromes from Durres port to European destinations.
Meanwhile, the amount of non-containerized cargo exported through commercial ships grew by five times compared to 2009. More than 273,000 tonnes of goods were also transported by lorries and trailers through ferries, whose main destination is Italy.
In total, the Durres Port handles 3.4 million tonnes of goods and 835,000 passengers during 2010.
Data made available for the firs 11 months show the number of total passengers handled in Durres Port dropped by 5 percent to 762,590 compared to the same period in 2009. However, the number of foreign passengers increased 4,520 compared to the January-November period in 2009.
The construction of new sites to handle goods and creating necessary conditions for high-tonnage ships will be the major two objectives for the country’s biggest port this year.
The port’s short-term goal is to create duty-free zones in the whole of the port’s areas like the ones in the ferry and containers terminals to allow faster movement of goods at a lower cost. Commercial ships from 154 ports from 35 countries all over the world arrived in Durres last year.