Ports sink to bottom

DURBAN: EMERGES DEAD LAST IN THE 2024 WORLD BANK RANKINGS

- Ciaran Ryan

WORST PERFORMER. Port of Durban, the busiest container port in sub-Saharan Africa, has the unenviable bottom of the log spot in World Bank port rankings.

(Bloomberg)

The Port of Durban ranks dead last in the World Bank Container Port Index for last year, released on Tuesday, with Coega coming in second last out of 403 ports worldwide.

Cape Town is only marginally better, ranking 400^th – just ahead of Point Noire in Republic of Congo – with Port Elizabeth at 395.

This means four of South Africa's busiest ports are ranked among the worst in the world, continuing the trend highlighted in the 2023 World Bank report.

What's different this year is that Durban has slipped from 399^th (out of 405 ports measured) in 2023 to 405^th.

Last year, Cape Town was in last place, so has edged up slightly to 400^th.

Port Elizabeth was in 404^th position in 2023, moving up to 395^th last year.

Source: World Bank CPPI and S&P Global Market Intelligence and Moneyweb

The latest report will no doubt cause consternation at Transnet, which last year criticised the World Bank's findings as “marred by factual errors” that did not accurately reflect port performance.

One criticism of last year's report was its narrow focus vessel turnaround times without accounting for external factors such as extreme weather, operational challenges and supply chain disruptions.

This year's report notes that the Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data without reference to the underlying factors or causes of extended port times.