Foreign sea traffic lost more than half of passengers in March
March, the month the coronavirus restrictions to people's movement were implemented, also turned out to be a hard month for the business of maritime passenger and freight traffic.
According to Statistics Finland's figures, a total of 491,230 people were transported in passenger traffic between Finland and other countries in March 2020. The number of passengers decreased by 59% compared to the same month last year.
In all, 267,678 people traveled between Finland and Estonia and 215,872 persons between Finland and Sweden. Altogether, 7,680 passengers were transported between Finland and Germany.
The number of passengers between Finland and Estonia decreased by 326,139 and between Finland and Sweden by 387,438 from one year ago. In March 2020, no passengers of foreign cruise ships arrived in Finland.
Transport of goods
The goods volume of foreign sea transport was in total 8.5 million tonnes. Sea transport decreased by 0.1 million tonnes from last year's March. Export volume fell by 3% and amounted to 4.6 million tonnes. Imports remained unchanged and were 3.9 million tonnes.
General cargo was transported most, in total 1.5 million tonnes, which is 18% of all transport. The second most transported was oil products, 1.2 million tonnes, and crude oil, 0.96 million tonnes.
Containers and vehicles
A total of 0.9 million tonnes of containers were transported through Finnish ports in March, which is 0.2 million tonnes less than in March 2019. The number of containers transported was 67,861 (119,685 TEU containers). Exports of containers went down by 26.1% measured in tonnes and imports increased by 1.5% compared to the same month last year.
A total of 178,933 transport equipment were transported in foreign sea traffic. Most of them were cars belonging to passengers. In March, 74,633 passenger cars were transported. The second most transported were trucks, 60,627 and truck trailers, 39,051.
Saimaa canal
The Saimaa Canal was opened on 30 March and 4,160 tons of transport were registered through the canal in foreign traffic.