In the first nine months of this year, 62,736 ships passed through the Turkish straits: 29,710 through the Istanbul Strait (Bosphorus) and 33,026 through the Canakkale Strait (Dardanelles). Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu reported this to Anadolu.
The Minister emphasized that Turkey is one of the key countries in terms of global maritime logistics.
“Between January and September, 29,710 ships passed through the Istanbul Strait, and 33,026 through the Canakkale Strait. Thus, in nine months, 62,736 passed through our straits ships,” he said.
The Minister noted that 1,235 of this number were dry cargo ships and 11,437 were bulk carriers.
The number of container ships during the same period reached 7,959, and the total tonnage of ships passing through the straits amounted to 1 billion 181.8 million gross tons, he indicated.
Most calls was in Kocaeli
Uraloglu also provided information on ships that called at Turkish ports in January – September.
“During this period, 47,631 ships called at our ports, including 16,770 under the Turkish flag and 30,854 under the foreign flag. Kocaeli became the port with the largest number of ship calls, both under Turkish and foreign flags,” the minister said, noting that over the nine months of the year, 1,967 ships under Turkish and 4,946 ships under foreign flags called at this port.
Next in the number of calls by ships under the Turkish flag are the port of Cesme – 1,374, Aliaga – 1,331 and Ambarli – 1,231, and under the foreign flag the port of Aliaga – 3,332, Iskenderun – 2,654 and Mersin – 2,430,” explained Uraloglu.
“The data also shows that our country is strengthening its position as a center of global maritime trade every day. The volume of cargo handled in our ports in ten months reached 457 million tons, the number of containers – 11.7 million TEU. The number of cruise ships arriving at the ports amounted to 1,278, and the number of passengers exceeded 2 million, setting a record. This indicates that Türkiye is now even more confident in demonstrating its position among the leading maritime powers and will continue to move in this direction,” the minister concluded.