Dublin Port Traffic still rising

Following the annual increase we saw for the February, Dublin Port have reported that this trend has increased in March.  Click to enlarge.

Total traffic at the port in March was up 13.5% by weight when compared to the same month last year.  There was a much stronger performance in exports (+23.5%) than in imports (+7.3%).
The increase in exports is likely to be driven by the improved performance in several of our main trading partners.  The relatively subdued performance of imports is reflective of the continued stagnancy of the Irish economy, though the annual changes in imports are going in the right direction (January (-1.9% ), February(+3.7% ), March(+7.3%)) to suggest some improvement in domestic economic activity.

Dublin Port traffic on the increase

Dublin Port is Ireland’s busiest seaport accounting for 40.5% of imports (by volume) and 43.3% of all exports (by volume) in 2008.  See here.  The Dublin Port Company have recently started issuing statements on monthly traffic at the port.  Thus far we have figures for January and February of this year, with comparisons made to the equivalent figures from last year.  Here is the picture told by the data we have so far.

The numbers for February are encouraging when compared to the same month last year.

• Total traffic up 6.4% at 2.15 million tonnes
• Imports up 3.7% at 1.29 million tonnes
• Exports up 10.7% at 0.86 million tonnes

Imports give a better indicator of domestic activity than exports and after a slight annual drop in January of -1.9%, the 3.7% increase in February is a positive sign.  It should be noted though that 75% of the goods coming through Dublin Port are destined for a region within a 50 mile radius of the port.  Only a quarter of the goods go beyond The Pale.
We don’t know anything about what categories these goods come from.  Monthly figures for previous years would also be useful to compare to pre-recessions level.   Regardless, this increase must be considered is good news.