"However, (...) oil product volumes declined across the region, across the eastern coast (of the Baltic Sea), including Russia's ports, in the two months of this year," Arturas Drungilas said.
Y-o-y, overall cargo traffic at the Klaipeda port increased by 8.8% to 7.9 mln tons in the two months and jumped by 15% to 3.89 mln tons in February alone, the port's authority said.
Klaipeda last year remained the number one port in the three Baltic countries in terms of annual cargo tonnage, with cargo volumes up 7.9 % to 46.58 mln tons.
The Lithuanian port's pretax profit rose by almost 9% in 2018 compared with 2017 to 34.6 mln euros as revenue grew by 7% to 63.74 mln euros.
The port authority's board has decided to transfer 21.7 mln euros into the state's coffers this year.
Vidmantas Paukste, the port's director of infrastructure, said 38.8 mln euros were ploughed into infrastructure development in 2018, or 11 mln euros more than in 2017, with 48 mln euros planned to be invested in 2019.
