The Flemish port of Ghent and danish shipping company DFDS deepen their cooperation: The number of RoRo sailings to Gothenburg will be increased.
In addition, DFDS agreed to strengthen its hinterland anchoring by transporting containers in a fixed schedule three times per week ab[ds_preview]oard inland vessels in the direction of Antwerp and Rotterdam. The agreement was announced during the state visit of Belgium to the Danish city of Copenhagen.
Currently DFDS offers six sailings a week with three vessels on its freight route between Ghent and Gothenburg. During the summer, the »Ark Germania« will be added as a fourth ship to the route. This will increase the number of weekly departures from six to eight »to accommodate for the growing capacity needs of its customers and boost business in port of Ghent«, it was said.
In 2016, the Ghent-Gothenburg service (which also calls at Brevik in Norway once a week), catered for the transport of 2.1 million tonnes of goods, the second highest volume ever. Expressed in lane metres (the sum of the length of all trailers and cars shipped in 2016) this was the best year ever with 1.8 million.
Furthermore, DFDS is expanding its activities in Ghent port with a fixed schedule of three sailings per week for containers on inland vessels. The barges are loaded at the multimodal terminal located at the Mercatordok. From there, a regular container line will be set up with sailings on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between Ghent and the ports of Zeeland Seaports, Rotterdam and Antwerp.
According to the partners, DFDS’s ro/ro traffic makes Sweden one of the main trading partners of Ghent port. The port company values the partnership as a tool to strengthen itself as a multimodal port.
