4 January (BNS)

The 4.9 million tons of cargoes handled by the port of Sillamäe in north-eastern Estonia during 2011 put the port in second place after Tallinn among Estonian seat ports in terms of cargo volume.

On the list of Baltic ports, Sillamäe is now fifth after Tallinn, Riga, Klaipeda and Ventspils, and can thus no longer be ranked as a small port, Sillamäe port's marketing manager Andrei Birov told BNS. The growth rate of the Sillamäe port, or Silport, was 40% compared to 2010.

In 2011 Silport was included in the list of A category ports of the Europe-wide transport network TEN-T, which requires having a freight volume equalling at least 0.1% of the total turnover of EU ports. Right now the minimum to fulfil that criterion is 3.4 million tons.

The third largest port in Estonia last year was the port of Pärnu with a turnover of close to two million tons, which marks an improvement of 0.2 million tons on 2010. The top categories of freight for Pärnu were round timber, peat, wood chips and wood granules.