Year on year the Baltic Sea Region
experiences a substantial development of both sea and air
transportation, which goes in line with the overall economic
situation in the area.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), production
development, and the Foreign Direct Investment index (FDI) are
usually among the most important factors to improve transport.
Thisyear,however,it was also the growing level of wages and the
falling rate of unemployment which stood for bigger trade exchange
or travel intensification.
The maritime market featured a burgeoning
increase in the Baltic seaports’ turnover, with a total of 755m tons
of cargo served in 2007. Again, containers are among the key factors
that drive the ports’ growth. Hence, an extra 1m TEU was shipped on
the Baltic, and a 16.3% upwards trend in container handling is one
of the world’s best results (see our previous ranking in BTJ 4/2007
for a comparison).
The development in aviation traffic has gradually
stabilized. The annual growth rate in the main airports last year
exceeded 8.9%, and the low-cost carriers were responsible for the
majority of this increase. Cheap flights and the Baltic communities’
growing welfare seem to keep the aviation market on the run
(cross-Baltic journeys are still mostly made by air transport), and
even the rising fuel costs did not do too much harm to the industry
last year. On December 21, the market welcomed the implementation of
the Schengen zone in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, but
these couple of days certainly could not change this year’s ranking
edition. However, a lack of the borders may have a visible impact on
air passenger traffic in the future. [read
more]
©2007
Baltic Press