RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has jumped eight spots to claim 16th position in the international ranking for container handling quantities, issued by London-based maritime journal Lloyd’s List. This comes as the Kingdom continues to make efforts toward upgrading its ports while connecting new sea routes to achieve the goals outlined under the National Transport and Logistics Strategy. In its report for the 100 largest ports in the world, Lloyd"s List stated that Saudi Arabia’s rise in international raking was a result of handling over 10.43 million containers at its ports in 2022, the Saudi Press Agency reported. “This qualitative progress of the Kingdom’s ports in handling the numbers of containers according to the Lloyd’s List report comes as a result of the continuous support and empowerment of His Highness the Crown Prince - may God protect him,” Minister of Transport and Logistics Services Saleh Al-Jasser said. He added that this is a result of the Kingdom’s drive towards increasing the capacity of Saudi ports to reach more than 40 million standard containers annually by 2030. The strategy also aims to increase the contribution of the transport and logistics sector to the national gross domestic product from 6 percent in 2021 to 10 percent by 2030, which is set to expand the sector’s non-oil revenues to SR45 billion ($12 billion) a year. The Kingdom has already put significant effort toward achieving these goals by adding nine intercontinental shipping services last year with the establishment of six new logistical areas in cooperation with international and local companies. These brought in funds of around SR4 billion. Additionally, Saudi Arabia’s investments in the sector have reached around SR17 billion thanks to programs powered by the Saudi Ports Authority, also known as Mawani, the SPA reported. On a separate ranking, the Kingdom’s ports rose to the 16th position in the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s Liner Shipping Connectivity Index in June. Moreover, the Kingdom achieved significant progress in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, jumping 17 places to reach the 38th position in 2023. This marks a notable improvement compared to its rankings of 55 in 2018 and 52 in 2016. Saudi Arabia currently has 97 shipping links that connect to 348 ports around the world.