National Statistics Institute of Spain

Ports of Spain

Avenida del Partenón, 10
28042 Madrid

Maritime transport data refer to gross weight of goods (in tonnes), passenger movements (in number of passengers) as well as for vessel traffic (in number of vessels and in gross tonnage of vessels).

The following classifications are applicable:

Maritime Coastal area: the nomenclature is based on the Geonomenclature (the country nomenclature for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States, originally drawn up by the Council Regulation (EEC) N°1736/75) in force in the year to which the data refer (RAMON: https://showvoc.op.europa.eu/#/datasets/ESTAT_Geonomenclature_2021_%28GEONOM_2021%29/data).

Ports: the codes used are the official UN/LOCODEs, when they exist. If a port does not have an official UN/LOCODE a provisional (numeric) code is attributed to the port. As soon as an official UN/LOCODE is attributed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to the port at the request of the competent national authority, the provisional (numeric) code is replaced by the final official one. In exceptional cases (see for example one-port transport or special aggregation for minor ports) permanent numeric codes are attributed to special locations or activities. The code list of UN/LOCODE is available by country through the following link: http://www.unece.org/cefact/locode/service/location.html. According to the relevant directive, Eurostat draws up a list of ports, coded and classified according to countries and maritime coastal areas. The list of ports is included in implementing legal acts and as such is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (the "official" list). The most recent list of ports published in the Official Journal is found in Commission Decision (EU) 2018/1007

Nationality of registration of vessels: the nomenclature used is the Geo-nomenclature (the country nomenclature for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States, originally drawn up by the Council Regulation (EEC) N°1736/75) in force in the year to which the data refer (RAMON: https://showvoc.op.europa.eu/#/datasets/ESTAT_Geonomenclature_2021_%28GEONOM_2021%29/data).

The type of ship classification is harmonised with an internationally agreed International Classification of Ship by Type (ICST).

The type of cargo classification, available in Directive 2009/42/EC, has been established in conformity with the United Nation ECE Recommendation N°21.

All maritime companies that provides maritime transport of good and passengers (groups 50.1 and 50.2 of CNAE-09).

Main concepts used in this domain are the following and for more information on the concepts and methodology, please consult the Reference Manual on Maritime Transport Statistics.

Port -A place having facilities for merchant ships to moor and to load and/or unload cargo or to disembark and/or embark passengers to or from vessels, usually directly to a pier.
Statistical Port -A statistical port consists of one or more ports, normally controlled by a single port authority, which is able to record ship, passenger and cargo movements.
Reporting Port-A statistical port for which statistics of inward and outward maritime transport flows are compiled.
Main port -A main port is a statistical port which has annual movements of no less than 200 000 passengers or recording more than one millions tonnes of cargo. For ports selected on the basis of only one of these cargo or passenger criteria, detailed statistics are required only for that transport.
Maritime coastal area (MCA) -A maritime coastal area is defined as a contiguous stretch of coastline, together with islands offshore. Within a country, an MCA is defined either in terms of one or more ranges of ports along its coastline, or in terms of the latitude and longitude of one or more sets of extremities of the coastal area. Riverbanks can be included. Normally the coastline of each country is allocated to a single maritime coastal area and the coastlines of more than one country may form a single maritime coastal area. There are some exceptions. For example, the USA is separated into a number of maritime coastal areas to cover its overall coastline. For some countries, two separate stretches of coastline may be counted as one maritime coastal area, as, for example, the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines of Mexico.
Carriage of goods and passengers by sea -The movement of goods and passengers using seagoing vessels, on voyage which are undertaken wholly or partly by sea. The scope of the Maritime Directive 2009/42/EC also includes goods:

1. Shipped to offshore installations;
2. Reclaimed from seabed and unloaded in ports.

Bunkers and stores supplied to vessels shall be excluded from the scope.

Seagoing vessel -Floating marine structure with one or more surface displacement hulls. In the context of the Directive, sea-going vessels are vessels other than those which navigate exclusively in inland waters or in waters within, or closely adjacent to, sheltered waters or areas where port regulations apply.
Nationality of registration of seagoing vessel (Flag state) -Every ship is entered in a registry (i.e. list) of ships. Registries are maintained by many countries, each having a set of rules regarding safety procedures, inspection schedules, manning numbers and nationalities for crew and officers, training requirements, etc. Ship-owners select which registry to use based on the balance between the relative cost implications of the rules of each registry and possible penalties from insurance assessments dependent on these rules.
Type of cargo- The type of cargo classification, set according to the UNECE - Codes for types of cargo, packages and packaging materials, Recommendation 21, Geneva, March 1986, describes how the goods are being transported in terms of the vessels being used and the port facilities required to handle them. It is therefore very different from the categories of goods classification.
Freight container-Special box to carry freight, strengthened and stackable and allowing horizontal or vertical transfers.

Swap bodies are excluded. Although without internal volume flats used in maritime transport should be considered to be a special type of container and therefore are included here. For a fuller description, reference should be made to ISO 668 and 1496.The related term "container cargo" refers to containers, with or without cargo, which are lifted on or off the vessels which carry them by sea.

Ro-Ro unit- This means wheeled equipment for carrying cargo, such as a truck, trailer or semi-trailer, which can be driven or towed onto a vessel. Port or ships' trailers are included in this definition. Classifications should follow United Nations ECE Recommendation No 21 'Codes for types of cargo, packages and packaging materials'. Live animals on the hoof are included. Vehicles being transported as cargo as opposed to a means of transport for freight are recorded in the separate headings of the Ro-Ro cargo classification, when they are rolled on or rolled off a vessel on their own wheels.
Ro-Ro cargo -This means goods, whether or not in containers, on Ro-Ro units, and Ro-Ro units, which are rolled on and off the vessels, which carry them by sea.
Gross weight of goods -The gross weight of each consignment is the weight of the actual goods together with the immediate packaging in which they are being transported from origin to destination, but excluding the tare weight of containers or Ro-Ro units (e.g. containers, swap bodies and pallets containing goods as well as road goods vehicles, wagons or barges carried on the vessel). This measure of quantity is different from that used in trade statistics, namely the net weight of goods and different from statistics collected on other transport modes where the tare weight is included. Where goods are transported in a road goods vehicle, in a container, or other intermodal transport unit, the gross weight of the goods does not include the tare weightof the transport unit.
Gross tonnage -This means the measure of the overall size of a ship determined in accordance with the provisions of the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969.
Passenger - Any person who makes a sea journey on a merchant ship. Service staff assigned to merchant ships is not regarded as passengers. Non-fare paying crewmembers travelling but not assigned and infants in arms are excluded.
Cruise passenger -This means a sea passenger making a sea journey on a cruise ship. Passengers on day excursions are excluded.
Cruise ship -This means a passenger ship intended to provide passengers with a full tourist experience. All passengers have cabins. Facilities for entertainment aboard are included. Ships operating normal ferry services are excluded, even if some passengers treat the service as a cruise. In addition, cargo-carrying vessels able to carry a very limited number of passengers with their own cabins are also excluded. Ships intended solely for day excursions are also excluded.
Cruise passenger excursion -This means a short visit by a cruise passenger to a tourist attraction associated with a port while retaining a cabin on board.

The data used in the domain are collected at Port Authority level.

Detailed data are provided for ports handling more than one million tonnes of goods or recording more than 200 000 passenger movements annually (Main ports). The other ports are required to provide summary data. However, detailed data may be included also for minor ports on a voluntary basis.

All the Autonomous Communities that have a port of state interest, which are: Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, País Vasco, Cataluña, Comunidad Valenciana, Alicante, Murcia, Andalucía, Ceuta, Melilla, Islas Baleares and Islas Canarias. 

The historical series begins in the first quarter of 1997.

First quarter of 1997.

The units used depend on the variables collected within each data set and are: gross weight of goods (without tares) expressed in thousands of tonnes; number of passengers in thousands, number of vessels.

TEUs: Twenty feet equivalent units, expressed in units or in thousands depending on the table. TEU calculation coefficients:

• 20-ft freight units (1 TEU)
• 40-ft freight units (2 TEU)
• Freight units over 20-ft and under 40-ft in length (1.5 TEU)
• Freight units over 40-ft long (2.25 TEU).

Quarters for datasets A1, A2, C1, C2, D1, F1 and F2.
Whole calendar years for datasets A3, B1 and E1.

National Level:

•  The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the Statistical Law No. 12/1989 "Public Statistical Function" of May 9, 1989, and Law No. 4/1990 of June 29 on “National Budget of State for the year 1990" amended by Law No. 13/1996 "Fiscal, administrative and social measures" of December 30, 1996, makes compulsory all statistics included in the National Statistics Plan. 
• The National Statistical Plan 2009-2012 was approved by the Royal Decree 1663/2008. It contains the statistics that must be developed in the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it. All statistics included in the National Statistics Plan are statistics for state purposes and are obligatory. The National Statistics Plan 2017-2020, approved by Royal Decree 410/2016, of 31 October, is the Plan currently implemented. This statistical operation has governmental purposes, and it is included in the National Statistics Plan 2017-2020. (Statistics of the State Administration). 
•  RDL 2/2011, of 5 of September, Revised Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Marine (TRLPEMM). This text attributes to Ports of Spain the elaboration of the traffic statistics in the ports dependent on the General Administration of the State (art. 18, letter ñ).

European Level:

• The statistics on maritime transport are collected within the framework of within Directive 2009/42/EC and Commission Decision 2008/861/EC, as amended by Commission Decision 2010/216/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 April 2010, by Regulation 1090/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 and by Commission Delegated Decision 2012/186/EU of 3 February 2012.
• The dissemination is based on the terms of Commission Decision 2001/423/EC on arrangements for publication or dissemination of the statistical data collected pursuant to Council Directive 95/64/EC on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea.

Not applicable.

National level:

•  The Statistical Law No. 12/1989 specifies that the INE cannot publish, or make otherwise available, individual data or statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity.

European level:

• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Article 4 of Commission Decision 2001/423/EC mention that: "the highest level of detail in which data may be published or disseminated is the level of port to and from maritime coastal area. The Commission may however publish at more aggregate level if the quality and/or completeness of information are not appropriate in such detail."

According to he Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and the council of 6 May 2009, the transmission of the results shall take place within five months of the end of the period of observation for data of quarterly periodicity and within eight months for data of annual periodicity, and Eurostat shall disseminate appropriate statistical data with a periodicity comparable to that of the results transmitted. We request the data monthly from the Port Authorities and four times a year we generate the data that we have to send to Eurostat.

The calendar is disseminated on the Eurostat website (Publications calendar)

The data is released on the Eurostat database.

Quarterly maritime transport statistics are published within 10 months after the reference period and annual maritime transport statistics within 16 months after the reference period.

The results of the statistical operations are normally disseminated by using press releases that can be accessed in the section of the website "What's new?".

The quarterly and annual results are available on the Eurostat website.

The quarterly and annual results are available on the Eurostat website.

Not applicable.

Ports of Spain publishes monthly and annual port traffic statistics on its website. These statistics follow a different criteria to those established for Eurostat statistics.

In the INE website is available the methodological documentation for Statistics of maritime transport of goods and passengers made by Ports of Spain, monthly and annual statistical operations and the annual statistics of each Port Authority. The specific methodology for developing the statistics is also available in the website of Ports of Spain.

Eurostat's quality reports can be found on this link.

Quality assurance framework for the Ports of Spain statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The European Statistics Code of Practice sets the standard for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics, along the lines of the institutional environment, statistical processes and statistical output. 

Statistical authorities, comprising Eurostat, the National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) and Other National Authorities (ONAs) responsible for the development, production and dissemination of European Statistics, are strongly committed to quality – this commitment and high quality awareness are clearly expressed in the Quality Declaration of the ESS that is also included in the Preamble of the CoP.

The  Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF) complements and breaks further down the Code of Practice.

The Maritime Transport Statistics is conformed by the data collected directly from the cargo manifest, summary declaration for temporary storage and the general ship's declaration. With this data, the 28 Porth Authorities conform the files that send monthly to Ports of Spain, and they produces the datasets requested for sending them to Eurostat. Later, Eurostat returns the quality checks to Ports of Spain with the purpose of improving the data before publication, and Ports of Spain make the corresponding changes, asking the different Port Authorities if it is necessary because they are the ones that have access to the mail sources of the information.

The information has the following quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, topicality, timeliness, accessibility, clarity, comparability and consistency.

The Maritime Transport Statistics covers the information needs of different groups of users, among wich are different organizations, Public Administration, territorial administrations, private companies, media, researchers and universities, private enterprises and individuals.

Due to the importance of maritime traffic in the economical area, this information is requiered for commercial and strategical purposes, but also is interesting in relation to their own evolution and their influence in the area where the ports are located. For these reasons, each of the users indicated before asks for different data, depending of the purpose of their enquiry.

Eurostat conducts two types of evaluations that assess Eurostat's performance in general, and one of them are the User Satisfaction Surveys. This surveys are monthly, and is possible to consult them here.

The survey meets the information requirements according to the Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea.

In addition, it is included in the National Statistical Plan 2017-2020 in the section on Information on Companies and in the European Statistical Programme 2018-2022: Transport statistics.

With the adoption of the European Statistics Code of Practice, Eurostat and the statistical authorities of the EU Member States have committed themselves to an encompassing approach towards high quality statistics. One of the dimensions of this committement is "Accuracy and reliability", wich means that European Statistics must accurately and reliably portray reality. 

The Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea requieres that the methods of collecting data shall be such that Community sea transport statistics display the precision required for the statistical data sets described in this document, that are: 

• A1: Seaborne transport in the main European ports by port, type of cargo and relation.
• A2: Non-unit-load seaborne transport in the main European ports, by port, type of cargo and relation.
• A3: Data required for both selected ports and ports for which detailed statistics are not required.
• B1: Seaborne transport in the main European ports, by port, type of cargo, goods and relation.
• C1: Unit-load seaborne transport in the main European ports, by port, type of cargo, relation and loaded status.
• D1: Passenger transport in the main European ports, by relation and nationality of registration of vessel.
• E1: Seaborne transport in the main European ports, by port, type of cargo, relation and nationality of registration of vessels.
• F1: European port vessel traffic in the main European ports, by port, type and size of vessels loading or unloading cargo, embarking or disembarking passengers (including cruise passengers on cruise passenger excursion).
• F2: European port vessel traffic in the main European ports, by port, type and size of vessels loading or unloading cargo, embarking or disembarking passengers (including cruise passengers on cruise passenger excursion).

Not applicable for maritime transport data collection.

The non-sampling errors that could have the maritime statistics can be data editing, coding and imputation where relevant. We could find errors in the original source (in the filling of the documents), in the coding of this information that the management app makes, in the interpretation of the files that Port Authorities send to Ports of Spain (when importing the files), or even in the conforming of the final files that Ports of Spain send to Eurostat. That is why the correction and improvement process is continuous, achieving more and more precise data.

Quarterly data should be transmitted by Member States to Eurostat within five months of the end of the period of observation; annual data within eight months. The Commission (Eurostat) shall disseminate appropriate statistical data with a periodicity comparable to that of the results transmitted (Directive 2009/42/EC).

The data are delivered punctually on the date announced in the structural publications calendar.

As Directive 2009/42/EC specifies the format and parameters of the information to be sent, the data is comparable at national and international level.

As the different regulations have not changed the methodology for the compilation of statistics, the data is comparable at national and international level since the first quarter of 1997, but there are some breaks in the series.

The statistical coverage was significantly improved in 2001 (inclusion of new ports). Until 2011 Q1, only data for the "central government ports" (Puertos del Estado) were reported, while data for ports under the control of regional governments were missing. Starting from 2011 Q1, a number of regional ports outside the state-controlled port system have been included in the data collection.

Data for all Spanish ports were revised in December 2015 for the reference years and quarters in the period 2000-2014. However, for most ports the impact of this revision was minor. As part of the revision, the number of TEUs for the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (ESSCT) were estimated by Eurostat for the period 2006 Q1-Q4. TEU figures for the port of Algeciras do not include empty containers for the period 2001 Q1 - 2003 Q4.

The quarterly passenger data (excluding cruise passengers) have been partially estimated by Eurostat in 2017, and in 2016 quarterly passenger data (excluding cruise passengers) include cruise passengers. Starting from 2018, the passenger data include data for a number ports that were not reported in the previous years.

In 2020 some ports have improved the classification of the 40' TEUS.

Ports of Spain publish monthly and annual statistics of maritime traffic, but the data are not entirely comparable with those published in Eurostat because it includes tares weight, local traffic and transhipments.

The statistics of Ports of Spain for Eurostat have had some break in series because there have been changes during the years of publication in the management applications and some data were being displayed in a different way before. Work is currently underway to improve the process and published data.

For the process of producing the statistics for Eurostat, it is estimated that one person is needed on a full-time basis, whose dedication to this task will be 25% of the annual working time. In addition, the cost of the application dedicated to importing and generating files, computer equipment, lighting costs, etc. must be included.

Eurostat check the files that are sent by Port of Spain and send back a Quality report with all the errors or incongruities. For correcting the different problems, Ports of Spain checks the files again to find the problem, corrects it if it is a problem in the conformation of the file or asks the Port Authorities if it is a fault in their data. If it is necessary, Ports of Spain send new files to Eurostat to correct the matters, or accept the corrections proposed by Eurostat propose in the report. The policy is to published the final data with all the necessary explanations.

Only final data are published. If an error is detected, it is corrected and users are warned about it.

The Maritime Transport Statistics is conformed by the data collected directly from the cargo manifest, summary declaration for temporary storage and the general ship's declaration. With this data, the 28 Porth Authorities conform the files that send monthly to Ports of Spain, and they produces the datasets requested for sending them to Eurostat.

Data collection is done monthly from the 28 Port Authorities, and quarterly from the ports of the Autonomous Communities.

The 28 Port Authorities uses their management apps to send their monthly data to Ports of Spain, codified in 7 different files. Two of them are the ones that Ports of Spain app uses to generate the files requested by Eurostat. However, the ports of the autonomous communities prepare manually the files to be sent to Eurostat.

Once the files requested from Eurostat are generated, Ports of Spain makes an initial validation, as it is indicated in the section of "Validation and quality checks" of the Reference Manual on Maritime Transport Statistics edited by Eurostat. In this initial validation it is checked if the total values of the different files are the same (as it is indicated in the Manual) and if the files contains negative values. Then the files are uploaded to EDAMIS website and some days after recives the Quality reports from Eurostat, that specifies if the files contains some errors. The procedure to resolve this errors is analyse the files that have the data involved, and follow the track until reaching, if necessary, the original source. Once the origin of the problem is found, it is tried to be solved from Ports of Spain or by consulting the responsible Port Authorities.

Ports of Spain receives the data from the 28 Port Authorities monthly and quarterly from minor ports of Autonomous Comunities, and when it is time to send the data to Eurostat the files are generated, using a management app for processing the data. Then, after a preliminary process of validation, the files are upload for the review of the team of Eurostat. Later, Ports of Spain recives an email from Eurostat with the Quality report and analysis of the data. Ports of Spain does a new revision of the data, explains why the differences and, if it is necessary, upload new files.

Currently, neither calendar effect is corrected nor seasonal adjustments are carried out.

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