Cargo handling at Ukrainian ports down 17.2% in Q1

MOSCOW. April 16 (Interfax) - Cargo handling at Ukrainian ports fell 17.2% year-on-year to 23 million tonnes in January-March 2025.

"Ukrainian ports handled 23 million tonnes of cargo in the first quarter of 2025 [...]. For comparison, in the first quarter of 2024, Ukrainian ports handled 27.8 million tonnes of cargo, which is 4.8 million tonnes more than this year," Ukrainian media reported, quoting the state-owned Administration of Sea Ports of Ukraine as saying in a statement on social media on Wednesday.

"The decline in cargo turnover is caused by the shrinking of agricultural land and the slump in production in export-oriented industries, in particular, metallurgy, which exported up to 80% of its output prior to the crisis," the statement said.

Cargo transshipment is also declining globally due to market instability and logistics disruption, it said.

The Greater Odessa ports handled the largest volumes of cargo, it said. They have handled 20.7 million tonnes of cargo since early 2025, namely, the Yuzhny port handled 10.6 million tonnes, the Chernomorsk port 6.6 million tonnes, and the Odessa port 3.5 million tonnes.

The ports of the Danube river region, Izmail, Reni and Ust-Dunaisk, handled more than 2.3 million tonnes of cargo in total.