The port of Rotterdam

The port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands is the largest seaports in Europe and one of the largest seaports in the world. The harbour area stretches about 40 kilometres from the city of Rotterdam to the “Hoek van Netherlands”. It is located at a strongly frequented waterway and is accessible for ships with a draft of 24 metres – for comparison: the Panama Canal has only a draft of 12.4 metres).
The harbour exists since the 14th century, but the significant upturn started with the industrialisation of the Ruhr, because the port is connected to that area through the Rhine.
In the year 2000 the seaport handled about 36% of the transport of goods between the route from “Le Havre” to the port of Hamburg.
In 2006 it had a total cargo handling of 376 million tonnes.

This port and the connected local economy make up to seven percent of the Dutch gross domestic product and provides jobs to more than 320000 people.

Due to the remarkable draft of 24 metres (only three harbours in the world have such a deep draft), the bulker “Berge Stahl” is able to call at the port of Rotterdam.

Needless to say, that such a large harbour like Rotterdam also has its problems. There are for example too much handled goods every day (about 20000 containers are being checked by specialists every year) to control every single box. They search for illegal imports like drugs, but in fact, only a fractional amount of the smuggled goods is detected before being forwarded.

Danke im Voraus!