I recently returned from a four week stay in The Netherlands and Germany. Our visit was a combination of visiting ports, seafarer centers, meeting other chaplains, spending time with family and friends and celebrating my 60ieth birthday. More about this in future blogs. However, I do want to comment on how my perspective has changed since my visit. In the past, while visiting the Port of Vancouver, I was always impressed with how many containers I would see going by on trains and trucks. No longer. After visiting the Port of Rotterdam I realize that the action in the Port of Vancouver is small potatoes in comparison with this port.
To put things in perspective consider the following numbers; The largest container ports in the world are now all located in Asia. The largest port is in Shanghai which annually handles the incredible number of 31,4 million TEU ( 20 foot containers ), followed by Singapore with 29,9 million TEU containers and Hong Kong with 24,4 million a year. The largest port in Europe is Rotterdam. Last year it handled 11,9 TEU's. which makes it no. 10 in the world.
In case you are curious to know the Port of Vancouver's ranking in terms of numbers, it ranks no. 50 with 2.5 million TEU's.
