Europe’s biggest port Rotterdam said that its full year throughput has risen 11% in 2010, helped by increasing world trade and economic growth in Germany.

Throughput in the Dutch port rose to 429,964 tonnes this year from 386,957 tonnes in 2009. The expansion was led by an 81% advance in imports of iron ore and scrap and a 12% increase in total container traffic.

Rotterdam is the world’s third largest port, after Singapore and Shanghai, based on a 2008 ranking by the American Association of Port Authorities. Europe’s next biggest port is Antwerp, which handles less than half the Dutch port’s volume.

Mr Hans Smits CEO of Rotterdam said that “I’m cautiously optimistic about the throughput, which I expect to grow by 2% to 3% to about 440 million tonnes in 2011.”

(Sourced from Bloomberg)