(MENAFN) Nearly 63,000 vessels passed through Türkiye’s key waterways, the Istanbul and Canakkale straits, during the first nine months of the year, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu reported.

Of the total, 29,710 ships transited the Istanbul Strait and 33,029 sailed through the Canakkale Strait. General cargo ships accounted for 21,235 vessels, while 11,437 were bulk carriers, and 7,959 were container ships, totaling 1.1 million gross tons.

Turkish ports received 47,631 vessels in the same period, including 16,770 Turkish-flagged ships and 30,854 flying foreign flags. Kocaeli led among Turkish ports with 1,967 domestic vessels and 4,946 foreign-flagged vessels, followed by Cesme, Aliaga, Ambarli, Iskenderun, and Mersin in traffic volume.

Uraloglu noted that Türkiye’s maritime trade position is strengthening, with ports handling 457 million tons of cargo over 10 months and 11.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of containers. Cruise ship arrivals also hit a record, with 1,278 ships carrying over 2 million passengers.

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