Latin America: largest container ports by container traffic 2021

In 2021, the port of Colón, Panama, handled the highest volume of cargo containers in Latin America and the Caribbean, at approximately 4.92 million TEUs. The port of Santos, in Brazil, followed with 4.44 million TEUs of cargo. Meanwhile, on the Pacific-side of the Panama Canal, Balboa also ranked amongst the top five Latin American ports that year.A new era of maritime tradeIn 1914, the opening of the Panama Canal revolutionised international trade. Together with the Suez Canal, this artificial waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans became one of the most vital in the world, significantly cutting down travel distances. As a result, more than 13 thousand transits are conducted annually through the canal, with transport between the U.S. East Coast and Asia ranking as the leading trading route intermediated by it, based on volume . In turn, in 2020, the Panama Canal generated a toll revenue of 2.66 billion U.S. dollars for the Central American nation, an increase from 2019 despite the slowdown in global trade amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Water transport on the rise Maritime shipping plays a crucial role in how products and goods are transported worldwide. While other means of transport such as air and rail may offer faster delivery times, ocean freight presents a significant cost and capacity advantage, with its competitiveness rising along with the load capacity of ships. Between 2009 and 2019, the volume of seaborne transported goods rose by over 40 percent, surpassing 11 billion tons of cargo in the latter year. Following that same trend, Latin American container ports handled 54.1 million TEUs of cargo in 2019, an increase of nearly 15 percent in comparison to 2014.

于2021年，巴拿马的科隆港在拉丁美洲及加勒比海地区处理了最多的集装箱货物，其数量约为492万TEU。巴西的桑托斯港紧随其后，处理了约444万TEU的货物。与此同时，在巴拿马运河的太平洋一侧，巴拿马港也位列当年拉丁美洲前五大港口之列。1914年，巴拿马运河的通航标志着海运贸易新时代的到来。与苏伊士运河并驾齐驱，这条连接大西洋与太平洋的人工水道成为世界上最关键的航道之一，极大地缩短了航行距离。因此，每年有超过13千次船只通过运河，其中美国东海岸与亚洲之间的运输因其数量之巨而成为其主要的贸易中介路线。相应地，2020年，巴拿马运河为中美洲国家创收了26.6亿美元的通行费，尽管全球贸易因新冠疫情而放缓，但这一数字较2019年有所增长。水上运输的兴起在海运在全球产品与货物运输中扮演着至关重要的角色。尽管航空和铁路等其他运输方式可能提供更快的交付时间，但海运在成本和容量上具有显著优势，其竞争力随着船舶载货能力的提升而日益增强。在2009年至2019年间，海上运输的货物量增长了超过40%，到2019年，货物总量超过了110亿吨。遵循同样的趋势，拉丁美洲的集装箱港口在2019年处理了5410万TEU的货物，与2014年相比，增长了近15%。