Puertos - Ports 67 The Port of Barcelona is a EuroMediterranean hub for food produce. It has an excellent location for this type of goods, with direct connections to the main ports in the western Mediterranean and access to a vast hinterland, with a good road network and regular rail services to the main agricultural and livestock producing areas in Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre. FACTS AND FIGURES Reefer containers account for 8% of the Port of Barcelona’s total container throughput thanks to the entire port community’s commitment to promoting this traffic segment. The Port of Barcelona terminals handled a total of 278,000 refrigerated TEUs in 2021, five times more than ten years ago, in 2011, when throughput was 56,000 TEUs. This increase represents average annual growth of over 17% in a segment that globally has registered a 2.6% rise over the last decade, and which only fell by 0.4% during the pandemic. Accordingly, the share of reefer containers as a percentage of the total number of TEUs at the Port of Barcelona has risen from 2.8% in 2011 to 8% in 2021. SERVICES AND PROJECTS The BEST container terminal, belonging to the Hutchison group, and APM Terminals Barcelona, as well as the Port Nou multipurpose terminal, have more than 3,500 permanent reefer connections, which makes the Port of Barcelona the Mediterranean leader for this traffic. BEST is working on new facilities for reefer containers, increasing the number of these connections to 4,000 at the Port of Barcelona. Similarly, logistics operators are increasing their services to cater for this traffic segment. Following the success of the exclusive Canal Frío refrigerated rail freight service, launched in 2016, which connects Zaragoza and Barcelona daily, a new reefer rail was launched to and from the Monzón Intermodal Terminal in Huesca, with four weekly services. A similar service has been launched more recently to and from Noain (Pamplona). The optimisation of infrastructures has been accompanied by operational improvements at the Border Inspection Point and applications to speed up the transit of fresh produce and guarantee its conservation and traceability. PORT OF BARCELONA
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