Traffic across container, general bulk and cargo shipping increased across all of Abu Dhabi’s ports last year.

According to the Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC), the biggest increase in traffic was seen in roll-on roll-off (RORO) activity, which covers vessels carrying wheeled goods such as trucks and cars. RORO traffic was up by 41.4 per cent from 56,510 units in 2011 to 79,906 units last year.

Container traffic also increased to 787,048 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2012 from 767,713 TEUs the previous year.

General bulk and cargo saw throughput increase by just under nine per cent compared to 2011, reaching 9.4 million tonnes.

The opening of the new Khalifa Port at Taweelah has in part driven the increase in shipping traffic. The deep-water port has a capacity of 2.5 million TEU and started operations in September last year.

After the transfer of all the container business from Abu Dhabi’s existing 40-year-old port in Mina Zayed to Khalifa at the end of 2012, the new port now handles all of the emirate’s container traffic.

ADPC expects that the number of containers handled by Khalifa Port will exceed one million TEUs per year in 2013.