CONTAINER cargo through the Port of Antwerp grew by eight per cent last year to seven million TEU, 500,000 more TEU than the previous year, which was attributed to the trade between Europe and North America.

Overall Antwerp expects to have handled 167.3 million tonnes of cargo in 2006, representing an increase of more than four per cent against the figure for 2005. Port authorities noted that the EU-America trade was as important as the growing trade from the Far East.

An example of how strong the growth in the container trade was last year is the Deurganck dock which handled 800,000 TEU and set a high level of utilisation for the facility in Flanders during its first year of operation.

From August onwards, the growth in imports of steel from China and India was described as "explosive" with the trade peaking in the last quarter of 2006 as steel imports rose by 29 per cent year on year from 3.5 to 4.5 million tonnes.