The Luka Koper Car & Ro-Ro Terminal, at the Slovenian port of Koper, has reported that it broke all previous annual throughput records in 2015. As of the last weekend of the year, it reported that 600,000 finished vehicles had made use of its premises, which is more units for any year in its history, including the boom years prior to 2008.
Dragomir Matic, president of the Luka Koper management board noted, "The car terminal remains among the top terminals in the Mediterranean and we plan for the next year even better results, especially because of new business and regular connections with the Far East."
Following the announcement in June last year that the port would be handling Mercedes Benz volumes from plants in parts of central and south-eastern Europe, Luka Koper made its first export shipment to the Far East at the end of October. It is expected to handle more than 100,000 vehicles a year for the carmaker this year.
According to the terminal, it was in 1990 that business really began to ramp up. This was the year when the first regular shipments of imported Hyundai cars began arriving in Slovenia from the Far East. In 1990, the terminal handled 12,000 units.
Other Korean and Japanese manufacturers then began to make use of the terminal, followed in the mid-1990s by Volkswagen. In 2016, 30 brands will be regularly handled by the port.
Luka Koper has also become an important export port, being used as a hub for many countries in the Mediterranean and now, with the Mercedes contract, also to the Far East.
