Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Port, located in King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea coast, has announced an increase in its throughput to 821,694 TEUs in the first half of 2017, a 14 per cent growth compared to the same time last year, which was 720,483 TEUs.

The port also announced an increase in the number of vessels received during the same period, reaching 398 vessels compared to 349 in the first half of 2016, also representing a 14 per cent increase, said a statement.

In its report on the merchandise exports and imports of the kingdom, the General Authority for Statistics revealed that the imports of King Abdullah Port increased by 60.7 per cent in May 2017, increasing the value of imports to SR1.27 billion ($340.5 million) compared to SR795 million ($211.9 million) in May 2016.

“These numbers clearly indicate the success of King Abdullah Port as the latest infrastructure megaproject in the Middle East,” said Eng Abdullah M Hameedadin, managing director of the Ports Development Company, owner and developer of King Abdullah Port.

He continued: “King Abdullah Port is built according to state-of-the-art specifications and is designed and executed to cope with the kingdom’s commercial and economic growth in the coming decades,” he said.

“With its advanced equipment and impressive numbers, the port is able to effectively contribute to the kingdom’s prosperity and revival, fulfilling its desired role in contributing to the realisation of Vision 2030,” he added.

Hameedadin continued: “We are cooperating with all relevant entities to support the port’s progress and finalise all its facilities. For example, we recently announced the completion of building and equipping the central operating room for monitoring and linking together the x-ray customs inspection systems in the port. In addition, we also covered all customs inspection areas with a wireless network utilizing the latest global technology.”

“The project was successfully delivered to the Saudi Customs at King Abdullah Port, making the port a pioneer in equipping the central operations centre and activating the 24-hour container inspection initiative,” he concluded.

In its report on the world’s top 100 container ports published in the first quarter of 2017, Alphaliner, the world’s leading port data analysis company, announced that King Abdullah Port made its way to the list in 98th place after increasing its annual throughput by around 8 per cent, from 1.3 million TEU in 2015 to 1.4 million TEU in 2016, it stated. – TradeArabia News Service