Koper - The container terminal of the port of Koper has surpassed its annual record for container transshipment, which stood at 988,501 container units. The port operator Luka Koper said on Thursday it would have transshipped 996,000 containers by the end of the year, a significant milestone given the impact of the pandemic on global logistics flows.

With further investments in increasing capacity, the Koper port will remain the largest container terminal in the Adriatic Sea, said Boštjan Napast, the president of the management board of the state-owned port operator.

Maintaining transshipment and productivity growth also relies on the extension of the port's pier one by almost 100 metres. The building contract for the project was signed in June, and it is expected to be completed next year.

According to Napast, this is the most important infrastructure project of the Koper port in the last ten years. The total investment amounts to EUR 45.6 million, part of which was also funded by the European NAPA4CORE project.

Meanwhile, Luka Koper has also continued to build inland warehousing capacities, as a total of 25,000 square metres of additional space is expected to be added by next year.

These investments are expected to increase the annual capacity of the terminal to 1.5 million container units. To handle such volumes, the port already ordered two new container cranes, which are expected to arrive next year.

In addition, Luka Koper noted that half of all containers transshipped in Koper already travel by rail, so the future development of the port also depended on the timely construction of an additional railway link to the hinterland.