Gateway to Europe

In 2008, more than 16.000 ocean-going ships docked at the Port of Antwerp.  Contrary to what one might expect, that statistic has remained reasonably consistent since the 1970s. What has changed is the average gross tonnage of those ships, nearly tripling since 1980.  As a result, the port handled nearly 190 million tons of cargo in 2008—in 1980 that was just over 80 million tons.  

Less than 150 km away, at the ports of Zeebrugge, Ghent, Ostend and Liége, another 93 million tonnes were handled in 2008.  Add the 660.000 tonnes of cargo handled at Brussels Airport, and one is talking about a total of 283 million tonnes handled at our major ‘gateways’ to the world.  How does one make sense of that statistic?  If we were to express this in 20-foot containers or TEU (twenty-foot-equivalent units), we’re talking about approximately 23 million containers per year or 63.000 per day.(1)   If we were to move that daily tally of cargo by train, we’d need about 200 km of train per day stacked two-high with containers. 

Fortunately, the story isn’t simply about moving containers.  The strength of Antwerp’s Port is the diversity in the types of goods it handles and the economic added value it generates.  The Port of Antwerp is actually five ports in one, with specific terminals specialised in containers, petrochemicals, fruit, paper & wood, and steel.  Zeebrugge too is specialised, with particular strength in vehicle transport.   This specialisation is key to the economic value of the country’s ports (estimated at 10% of GDP by the National Bank), since it has helped attract much industrial investment—think of the petrochemical cluster in Antwerp, but also the automotive and steel sector.  Notwithstanding their current specialisation, it is in containers that the major ports will grow.  The newly built Deurganckdok, which formally opened in 2005, is the world’s largest tidal dock in the world, and once at capacity will handle 6 to 7 million TEUs (which will increase the annual number of containers handled from today’s 8 million to about 13 million).  Next in line is the Saeftinghedok, another planned container dock, but this project is still mired in public debate around the merits and costs of the project.  Indeed, the cargo numbers and projections are impressive but they lead us to two rather essential questions: one, how on earth do we (and will we) manage all that traffic and cargo once it enters our borders; and two, to what extent is that movement a net contribution to our economy and quality of life?  Good questions that will be tackled in subsequent chapters.