Clúster

Given that cruise traffic has stagnated significantly and the interest shown in Vigo by certain companies with their own order books, the Port of Vigo has announced that it will put out to tender the authorisation and operation of a second cruise terminal, close to the current one.

In this regard, the President of the Port Authority of Vigo, Enrique López Veiga, stressed that the creation of a second terminal “could be important” and help to re-edit the “historic highs” of the Vigo terminal in this activity. Although cruise traffic is better than in 2017 at this point in the year, the forecast is that 2018 will end up in the same figures as last year. Thus, the data for June and for the first half of the year are “very good”, according to Enrique López, since the total traffic from January to June amounted to 2,223,000 tonnes, 8.17% more than in the same period in 2017.

The increase in freight traffic was 9.68%, which translates into the best first half of the year since the beginning of the crisis, with the “Leixoes effect” beginning to reverse, in reference to the diversion of goods to the Portuguese terminal due to the procedures at the border inspection post and the “pressure” exerted from Vigo to “intensify controls” there.

The results after tax of the port of Vigo in the first half of the year were 901,000 euros, compared to 325,000 euros in 2017, and the objective, said its president, is to close the year with a profit of nearly two million, still far from the 4 or 5 million he estimates to be “normal” for this terminal.