The Port of Gioia Tauro (Italian: [ˈdʒɔːja ˈtauro]) is a large seaport in southern Italy. It is the largest port in Italy for container throughput, the 9th in Europe and the 6th in Mediterranean sea.[1] Located north of the city of Reggio Calabria, between the municipalities of Gioia Tauro and San Ferdinando, Calabria, it is close to the East–West route which stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal and serves mainly as a transshipment hub, connecting the global and regional networks that cross the Mediterranean.[2]
The port benefits from the natural depth of its water (up to 18 meters) and offers one of the longest linear quays available in the Mediterranean (3.4 km). These characteristics, together with the availability of dedicated equipment (22 Ship-to-shore cranes, reaching up to 23 rows of containers), enable the port to serve four Ultra Large Container Vessels simultaneously, a unique feature among Mediterranean ports. The throughput of the port reached 3,467,772 TEUs in 2008, then declined consistently from 2009 to 2011, reflecting the global economic crisis. From 2011 to 2013 the traffic volumes in Gioia Tauro increased, but then fell again between 2013 and 2015, suffering from the difficult conditions of the transhipment market in the Mediterranean and the competition from other major transhipment hubs in Greece, Egypt and Malta.[3]
- ^ Lloyd's List
- ^ (in Italian) Il Nostro Network | Gioia Tauro, Contship Italia Group
- ^ Berlinguer, Porti, retroporti e zone economiche speciali