Over 47.6K vessels docked at Turkish ports in January–September, highest in last 7 years

By Mertkan Oruc, Ayse Bocuoglu Bodur and Emir Yildirim

ANKARA (AA) — Some 47,630 vessels docked at Turkish ports in the first nine months of the year, the highest number in seven years, according to the Maritime Affairs General Directorate data.

While 16,777 of these vessels were Turkish-flagged and 30,853 were foreign-flagged, the total number of ships increased by 2.8% from the same period last year, the data showed.

The number of ships arriving at Turkish ports was 55,448 in 2018, but due to the pandemic, this figure fell to 40,000 in 2021 before steadily increasing to 43,164 in 2022 and 45,605 in 2023.

From January to September of this year, ships docking at Turkish ports carried a total of 723.2 million gross tons of cargo.

- Most vehicles transported on European routes

The number of vehicles transported on roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) vessels on global routes increased 4.2% to 541,003 in January–September this year.

Some 269,620 vehicles arrived, and 271,383 vehicles departed on Ro-Ro ships using global routes. Most of these vehicles were transported on European routes in particular.

Some 391,292 of the total number of vehicles transported on Ro-Ro vessels were transported on European routes like Trieste, Valencia, and Marseille.

Meanwhile, the number of vehicles transported between Black Sea ports, such as Tuapse, Novorossisk, Constanta, and Turkish ports, was 65,630, the data showed.