Welcome – Henk de Haas, Chairman of Promotion Council North Sea Port

We have just left behind us a long and hot summer. I hope you have been able to enjoy some pleasant days off to recharge. During summer, North Sea Port presented the throughput fgures of the frst half of this year. Because of the summer holidays, some of you might have overlooked the port authority’s press release on these results, and as I like to share good news with you, I will give you a short summary.

In the frst half of 2022, the businesses in North Sea Port recorded 37.5t million of seaborne freight transshipment, which is 3.5t million more than in the same period in 2021. This 10.3% increase can mainly be ascribed to the second quarter, which was the strongest ever recorded. It also made it the best half year ever, so everyone in the port area can be proud of this excellent result. Like seaborne cargo transshipment, inland navigation transshipment also recorded its best quarter and best half year ever – 33t million for the frst six months, an increase of almost 13%.

Russia was the most important trading partner for the frst half of 2022. Certain products from Russia, however, fall under EU embargo, and this is why additional stocks of these products such as wood and solid fuels, have been built up in recent months. For the last part of the year a decline in cargo traffc with Russia is anticipated. With this in mind, it is good to notice that there has been a notable increase in trade with the US (+15%, solid fuels), Finland (+31%, solid fuels), and Canada (+40%, iron ore and fertilisers). Usually, the half-year fgures can be more or less doubled to arrive at the annual result. However, due to, among other things, the EU embargo for Russian goods, North Sea Port expects a decline in transshipment in the last half year, so for now it is diffcult to make a prediction for the 2022 results.

Now that the holidays are over, most of you are fully engaged again, and this also counts for the Promotion Council. Early September, our Post-summer Port Meeting was a successful networking event for our participants, and it was also the start of an intensive promotional campaign. Apart from organising more networking events, we also participated in several exhibitions to promote our port. We might have met and talked to each other at one of these events. And otherwise, there will be plenty of occasions to meet in the remains of the year as we will organise more events and we will attend more shows. So, I hope to see you soon!

With kind regards,

Henk de Haas Chairman of Promotion Council North Sea Port