Asyaport Port Planning and Technical Services Manager Besim Donmez stated that they aim to load more containers this year compared to last year.
Donmez told the AA correspondent that 41% of transit container operations throughout Turkiye are carried out at Asyaport Port in Tekirdag’s Suleymanpasa district.
Donmez stated that the TEU (container with a width of 2.3 meters and a length of 6.1 meters) at Asyaport, which was 1 million 800 in 2022, has decreased in 2023. “In the post-pandemic period, the Ukraine-Russia War, China-US tension and attacks on ships in the Red Sea have negatively affected global maritime trade. It is expected to continue to affect it from now on. Logistics activities in our region will be negatively affected until the navigational safety problem in the Red Sea is resolved.”
Donmez stated that due to the navigational safety problem in the Red Sea, flights from the Far East to Turkiye will extend from 42 days to 53 days.
Asyaport hosted 93 giant container ships last year
Stating that they handled 24 million tons of cargo by hosting 1033 container ships in 2023, Donmez said, “Asiaport hosted 93 giant container ships with a length between 300 meters and 400 meters, including the MSC Turkiye ship. At the port, which closed last year by handling 1 million 720 thousand TEU, our target this year is 2 million TEU movement.”
Donmez emphasized that Asyaport will continue its investments without slowing down in 2024 and said:
“Our port expansion project is continuing and it is aimed to be completed in 2024. Our dock length is 2 thousand 10 meters, and when our expansion project is completed, our dock length will increase to 2 thousand 810 meters. We will increase our handling capacity from 2.5 million TEU to 4 million TEU. In this way, we will be able to serve 3 ships of 400 meters length at the same time at our main dock. While we are proud of being Turkiye’s largest transit port, we also want to be the port that handles the most containers in 2024. In summary, we aim to make more investments, more employment and more container handling this year.”
Source: AA / Prepared by Irem Yildiz