July 1 - General conventional goods at Bilbao port, helped by project cargo activity, rose by 14 percent in the first three months of the year. Project cargo at the Spanish Atlantic port includes machinery, wind energy equipment, rail carriages, buses, pa

More than 40 shipping lines that move project cargo have their own agency or representation at the port.

Managers at the port acknowledge that surface access to the port has to be improved and the logistics areas enhanced. Huge steps are being taken, but they must be more productive in the railway area. The project for the southern railway access has not yet been defined but its importance for the future development of the port and its economic environs continues to be maintained.

Equidistant between Bordeaux (341 km) and Madrid (396 km), the Port of Bilbao operates inside a hinterland also marked by the towns of Toulouse, (456 km), one of the centres of the European space industry, and Zaragoza (304 km), a great logistics and industrial platform, and capital of the Ebro Corridor, which links Bilbao to Barcelona, with an extension to Madrid.

Russia, the United Kingdom, Iran and the United States are the main countries with traffic through Bilbao; however, in recent years there has been a spectacular increase in traffic with Asian countries such as China and India.

Significant recent projects through the port have included railway rolling stock and blades for wind power generating turbines.