Introduction

Zeeland Seaports has one of the largest inland navigation ports in Europe: Terneuzen. Due to its location close by the Westerschelde river, along the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, Terneuzen has developed into an important inland navigation port over the years. Vlissingen-Oost has also played an increasingly important role in inland navigation.

Transhipment via inland navigation in our ports continues to develop along with transhipment by sea, although inland transhipment in 2008 remained roughly the same as 2007, with over 28 million tons. Inland navigation consequently remains undiminished an important mode of transport. The ambition of Zeeland Seaports is to give extra stimulation to inland navigation as a sustainable means of transport in the coming years.

In inland navigation, we also see that dry and wet bulk are the most important types of goods. Here wet bulk remains the largest category. Parallel to transhipment by sea, piece goods via inland navigation achieved the largest percentage growth. Besides this category, wet bulk also increased, the other types of goods fell.

With inland navigation we do not speak of import/export but of supply and transport, because there is not always supply from and transport to abroad. After all, within the Netherlands itself, inland navigation is also used as a mode of transport. In 2008, approximately 19 million tons were transported by inland vessels, while about 10 million tons were supplied.