The Port of Beirut’s revenues shrank by 13.45% year-on-year in January 2015 to settle at $16.01M. Activity on Lebanon’s main port began the year poorly with a decrease in total container activity (including transshipment) by 7.96% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 83,770 TEU. This reduction was the dual result of declines in transshipment volume (TS) and container activity excluding transshipment with downticks of 14.26% and 4.26% to respective values of 28,907 TEU and 54,863 TEU. In detail, port statistics show that MSC, one of the main shipping companies operating at the port, registered a 28.67% decline in TS volume to 15,539 TEU in January 2015. However, CMA CGM’s TS volume rose 19.01% y-o-y to 12,631 TEU.
Regarding the trade activity through the port, the number of vessels docking at the port declined by 19.88% to 133 in January 2015. The total volume of exported and imported merchandise edged down by 18.07% to 575.2 thousand tons and the number of imported cars by January decreased by 27.60% to 6,583 cars.