More than 40,000 ships pass through Turkish straits in first half

ISTANBUL  

More than 40,000 vessels passed through the Turkish Straits in the first half of the year, according to data from the General Directorate of Maritime Affairs.

Data showed that 19,277 ships transited the Istanbul Strait in the first six months of the year, while 20,941 vessels passed through the Çanakkale Strait, bringing the total number of transits to 40,218.

The Turkish Straits maintained their strategic importance during the first half of the year, a period marked by disruptions to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran-United States/Israel conflict and significant changes in the global trading system and despite intensified drone attacks exchanged between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea.

Of the vessels passing through the straits, 13,127 were general cargo ships, 7,777 were bulk carriers and 5,188 were container ships.

A total of 604 livestock carriers, 258 vehicle carriers and 87 cement carriers also transited the Turkish Straits during the same period.

The total gross tonnage of vessels passing through the straits reached 767.5 million gross tons in the first half of the year. Of this total, vessels passing through the Bosphorus accounted for 301.5 million gross tons, while those transiting the Dardanelles accounted for 466 million gross tons.