Santos leads ranking of largest Latin American Port
Folha de S. Paulo
Main route for the Brazilian products to the foreign market, the port of Santos remained the port with more operations of Latin America and the Caribbean last year, even though it suffered a greater fall in its flow than the main ports of the region.
According to a survey of the ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), the operations, in volume, in the Brazilian port fell 15.7% in 2009 compared to the prior year. The result is worse than the average of the 20 main ports of the region that accumulated a 6.8% retraction last year.
The fall in the activity in the port of Santos is even greater than that of the Brazilian exports in 2009.
The sales of Brazilian products abroad retreated, in volume, 2.9%, last year - in value, the decline amounted to 22.7%, always compared to 2008. With that, the advantage of Santos over the second port in the ranking, Colón (Panama), which was 8.5% in 2008, fell to 2% last year.
Besides Santos, the ports of Paranaguá (Paraná), Rio Grande (Rio Grande do Sul) and Itajaí (Santa Catarina) are the Brazilian ports that figure among the 20 largest of the region in 2009. The first two had an increase in the activity last year, while Itajaí presented contraction of 13.4%.