The new sea port being constructed by Rotterdam to handle the biggest new cargo ships now entering service or being planned should start operation by the end of this year. Hitherto, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, has been entirely a river port. Even so, it is the most important harbour in the European Union. It contributes 7% of the gross domestic product of the Netherlands.

“The river port is, in some places, 19 m to 20 m deep, and in other places is more than 20 m deep. We also do dredging,” reports Rotterdam City Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb. “But the new sea port has a depth of 23 m, suitable for the biggest ships.”

The ships entering Rotterdam have been steadily growing in size. Container ships are now approaching 19 000 TEUs in size. (TEU stands for twenty foot equivalent units, and is the standard measure of size for container ships.) “These are very big ships. It’s amazing,” he avers. To deal with these, construction of the new port was started some six years ago.

The railway and highway connections for the new port have been completed, as has a 6-km-long recreational beach. Currently, the cranes are being erected. “These will be the most modern cranes in the world,” he affirms. “They will be unmanned, controlled remotely by operators using joysticks.” However, this means that the operators will need a higher level of education than traditional crane operators. “A lot of manual jobs are disappearing from the port.” But the port has its own educational system, headed by the University of Shipping and Ports, which is situated in the port complex.

Past experience has shown that the traffic handled by Rotterdam grows by an average of 2% a year (depending on the state of global trade) and this is expected to continue into the future. As a result, the Netherlands is also having to widen the highway linking the port to Germany. “We also expect more traffic on railways and barges towards Germany,” he says. In fact, so much cargo for Germany passes through Rotterdam that it has been called ‘Germany’s port’ – for example, all the iron-ore imported into Germany comes through Rotterdam.

With the construction of the sea port, the Rotterdam port complex now extends 40 km. It employs 100 000 people directly (the new sea port will add another 10 000 jobs) and a further 100 000 jobs are linked to the port. Rotterdam has double the capacity of Antwerp, in Belgium, its closest competitor, and more than double the capacity of Hamburg, Germany’s biggest harbour. The Dutch port handles 38% of all maritime traffic through continental ports lying on the English Channel and the North Sea (or, in other words, in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany: Denmark’s main ports are in the Baltic, and none rank among wider Europe’s top 20 ports in terms of cargo handled).

The main cargoes handled by Rotterdam are containers and oil, both of which are growing rapidly, but the harbour also handles bulk cargoes, including those of agricultural origin, iron-ore and coal. Its main imports from South Africa are fruit – the port is the biggest importer of South African fruit in the world – wine and coal. In 2011, 3 119 000 t of iron-ore and scrap and 2 304 000 t of coal were imported through Rotterdam from South Africa.

Located in the Netherlands, also referred to in Europe as the Low Countries because of their low-lying land, exposed to flooding, Rotterdam (the port and the city) has enormous experience in guarding against and countering floods. This expertise the city is making available to other port cities around the world, particularly those located on river deltas.

Its is doing so through the Delta Cities group, an international body set up on the initiative of Rotterdam. (Membership of the group is not limited to cities lying on deltas.)