Capacity limits hold back growth at the port of Antwerp

Capacity limits hold back growth at the port of Antwerp    Container traffic growth at the port of Antwerp slowed to 3 percent in the first quarter, as the Belgian port faced a limit on how much traffic its container terminals could handle.
   Volume in the latest quarter reached 1.5 million TEUs. “The exponential growth in the past few years has been somewhat tempered by the continuing lack of capacity in the container terminals,” the port of Antwerp said in a statement. “The situation will be eased when the first facilities in the new Deurganck tidal dock come into operation in July.”
   The rival port of Rotterdam, which saw its container traffic surge an estimated 19 percent to about 2.2 million TEUs in the first quarter, benefited from the capacity constraints in Antwerp.