7 January 2009

Record year for Montreal

The following article is extracted from the 5 January 2009 edition of “The Journal of Commerce”.

Patrice Pelletier, president and chief executive of the Montreal Port Authority, said Monday that container traffic through the Port of Montreal should reach a record 1,460,500 TEUs in 2008, up 7.2 percent on the previous year.

He called that “an exceptional result achieved despite the economic slowdown that affected us during the last two months of 2008.”

Total traffic is expected to increase 2.5 percent to 26.6 million metric tons, also a record, he said.

Pelletier expects 2009 containerized cargo tonnage to drop by 3.7 percent from 2008. …

In an interview, Pelletier credited Montreal’s strong results to its relative proximity to Europe as well as its links to the industrial heart of North America, saying it is not only the Port of Montreal but “we are as much the port for Chicago.”

Thirty percent of containers moving through Montreal is United States traffic, and 75 percent of that connects with Chicago, he said. “Illinois is our No. 1 shipping region outside of Canada, and for traffic between Europe and Chicago we beat everyone else by three to four days."..