With maritime transportation carrying more than 80% of global trade, the efficient operation of ports is critical to global markets and economic development. The World Bank recently released the 2023 Global Container Port Performance Index (CPPI), which ranks the operational efficiency of 405 container ports around the world, and the Port of Cape Town, South Africa, ranked in the bottom half of the ports surveyed, as the “world's worst” container port, while the other two ports of Durban ranked 398th and Port Elizabeth ranked 391st. The other two ports, Durban (398th) and Port Elizabeth (391st), were ranked as the “world's worst performing container ports”. The top performers in 2023 are ports in East and Southeast Asia, with 13 of the top 20 ports coming from these regions.
This report released by the World Bank also shows that in 2023 there is a crisis in South Africa's ports, port congestion and delays every day to South Africa caused 98 million rand (1 South African rand is about 0.40 yuan) in direct economic losses, directly leading to the transportation of goods valued at about 7 billion rand blocked.
South Africa, as one of the more developed countries in maritime transportation, encompasses 8 of the 17 major commercial ports in Southern Africa, and its exports of goods are mainly dependent on maritime transportation. The importance of South Africa's ports is self-evident, why has it fallen into such a state?
“Problems
In fact, the lack of capacity, inefficiency has been the South African ports of the “old” problem.
South Africa's busiest port of Durban, for example, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Mediterranean Shipping Company, South Africa's director of operations Ian Rosario said at the beginning of the year, the port of Durban has been very congested for container ships, the ship can not even dock, the waiting period of up to 20 days.
By March of this year, congestion and backlogs in South African ports had worsened significantly. According to the delays at South African ports and terminals released by international shipping giant Denmark's Maersk Line Group, the waiting time at Durban Port's Terminal 1 increased from the original 2 to 3 days to 5 days, and the waiting time at Terminal 2 was as long as 22 to 28 days; the Port of Cape Town also experienced delays of up to 5 days.
Plagued by congestion, a number of shipping companies have begun to levy congestion surcharges or simply bypass other ports. Maersk Line Group announced in May that it would collect destination congestion charges on routes from the Far East, Vietnam and Taiwan to Cape Town, South Africa.
Meanwhile, problems such as old equipment and lack of capacity have led to a large number of containers being stranded at South African ports, reaching 70,000 at one point during the peak. A large number of seasonal fruits piled up in the Cape Town port, leading to a 14% drop in South African fruit exports, resulting in a loss of profits amounting to billions of rand.
Carla Tewa, purchasing manager at Tru-Cape, a South African fruit production and export company, said the exact impact of the problems at the Cape Town port on the company was difficult to calculate, and could only be described as “costly”.
“Clearing the backlog at the Durban port will take months, and as a result companies are facing increased costs, longer transportation periods and supply chain disruptions.” Bianca Botts, director of Castle Investments at the U.S. hedge fund firm, said South Africa's port problems would deal a fatal blow to related industries and affect the country's economic growth and employment.
“Unexpected.”
In recent years, South Africa's economic and social development is faced with many challenges: weak economic growth, social inequality has increased, high unemployment ...... South Africa's “Solo Daily News” even said, “South Africa's ports global ranking at the bottom of the list is to be expected.”
Many people point the finger at the South African port terminal operator South African National Transportation Corporation. As one of South Africa's important state-owned enterprises, the South African National Transportation Company's operating range covers South Africa's ports, railroads and pipeline business. However, due to mismanagement, the company has become heavily indebted in recent years, accumulating more than 135 billion rand in debt, and has been unable to obtain loans from banks.
At the National Council on Provincial Affairs held at the end of 2023, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises, Obed Bapela, was outspoken about the company's problems with infrastructure, maintenance of equipment, and corruption, “[South African National Transport Corporation] is grossly underinvesting in infrastructure and equipment upgrades ... . some of the equipment has been in use for 50 or 60 years and has not been replaced.”
According to Bapela, the company also suffers from corruption, such as misappropriation of funds, and “although new equipment has been purchased, much of it lacks spare parts and is not usable at all due to corruption in the purchasing process.”
South Africa's National Transport Corporation Chairman Andile Sanqu said that port congestion is a complex and intractable problem - old equipment, insufficient funds for upgrading and maintenance, and the delivery of equipment needed for upgrading some ports can take even as long as 12 to 18 months. Some South African domestic media and experts generally believe that if the port problem persists, South Africa will pay a huge economic cost.
South Africa does not recognize the “bottom”
In the face of the port performance of the world “bottom” results, South Africa relevant departments said they do not recognize.
The South African National Transport Corporation (SATC) denounced the World Bank report as “factually incorrect”. According to the company, the World Bank incorrectly used vessel dwell time as the only measure of container port cargo handling performance, relied on third-party sample data for its calculations, and failed to verify the data with terminals before releasing the sample data, thus making the ranking results extremely unfair to South African ports.
Juanita Mali, CEO of the South African Shipowners' Association, said that the World Bank's report is informative and acknowledged that ships do spend relatively long periods of time delayed in anchorages outside South African ports. However, she further pointed out that the report uses an oversimplified and single measure of statistics that does not reflect the real situation in ports. Mali believes that the ship's stay time is not the only indicator to measure the performance of container ports, container throughput and loading and unloading rates should also be taken into account.
The World Bank's report shows that the statistics of this Container Port Performance Index come from a wide range of sources, covering about 194,000 port calls (the total number of hours spent in ports) and 250 million container shipments from 876 container terminals around the world. However, Jacob van Rensburg, a researcher at the South African Shipowners' Association, says the World Bank has access to data on South African ports for only 68 percent of the country's ship calls.
Mali argues that the World Bank came to the wrong conclusion because it used a different data set. “Based on the data collected by the South African Shipowners Association, South African ports should be ranked much higher globally, roughly in the 250 to 280 range.” She said South African ports were “by no means at the bottom of the global heap”.
Industry calls for public-private partnership
South Africa has clearly recognized the seriousness of port congestion - the South African government has set up a National Logistics Crisis Committee to prioritize reforms aimed at resolving the logistics crisis and addressing structural issues that are hindering the development of the logistics industry. Last December, the South African Minister of Finance Enoch Gordon Guana announced that the troubled South African Transport Corporation to provide 47 billion rand in financial support to help solve its huge debt problems, accelerate its recovery plan.
In addition, many industry insiders believe that public-private partnerships are the key to solving South Africa's port problems. They call on the South African government to open up South Africa's ports to private investment, bring in technology and investment, and encourage competition between terminals. Busisiwe Mavuso, CEO of the South African Business Leaders Organization, whose members are mainly heads of large South African and multinational corporations, said, “The public-private partnership model is crucial for the upgrading of South Africa's ports.”
South Africa has already taken a number of actions in this regard. Philippine port giant International Container Terminal Services has been authorized to buy nearly half of the main container terminal at the Port of Durban, operating it for 25 years, according to the South African News 24 website.
“The inefficient operation of the port not only hinders the transportation of goods, but also has a serious impact on economic growth.” The City of Cape Town said in a statement in early June. In the statement, the City of Cape Town called for greater private sector integration to improve port performance.
In May this year, Oscar Botchaerts, acting executive president of the South African National Transport Corporation (SANTC), which is responsible for terminal operations in the Western Cape, presented a new plan to boost the port's capacity during a visit to the Port of Cape Town. Botchaerts said that the recent fruit export season had created a big challenge for port operations, and the company had introduced measures to deal with it, “We have seen changes in port capacity. With more new equipment and technology being put in place, port operations are expected to improve further.”
https://www.cnss.com.cn/html/gkdt/20240814/354331.html
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