Middle East ports perform strongly in latest CPPI

The Chinese deep-water port of Yanghshan ranked top, signaling a return to pre-eminence for China after Saudi ports led the way last year.

“Looking beyond Yangshan Port, Middle East and North Africa ports performed well again this year, with three ports from the region finishing in the top five: Port of Salalah in Oman ranked 2, Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi 3 and Tanger Med ranked 4,” the report said.

In 16th place, the Port of Algeciras in Spain, now being increasingly outmatched by Tangier Med, was the highest ranked port in Europe.

Falls by Saudi ports in the latest industry rankings will come as a stinging disappointment after the progress announced last year. The Kingdom has unequivocally set out a target to quadruple port throughput to 40m teu a year, and this setback is evidence the target could be difficult to achieve.

In the CPPI 2022, King Abdullah Port (KAP) came in at 17, Jeddah at 29, Dammam at 31, with Jubail bucking the trend as a notable improver at 58. In last year’s CPPI 2021 rankings KAP ranked top at 1, Jeddah Islamic Port 8, Dammam 14 and Jubail 191.

The Port of Berbera, which ranked at 144 this year, was the highest-ranking port in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Many ports in the region continue to experience excessive vessel turnaround time, a persistent risk for supply chain disruption,” the report said.

It also noted that In Southeast Asia, the Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia rose to 6th place this year, Vietnam’s Cai Mep to 12th and Singapore port to 18th.

“The Yangshan Deep-Water Port enjoyed the greatest year-over-year improvement in performance of the top ports in the CPPI,” said Turloch Mooney, Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

“Yangshan managed to reduce ship waiting time by a sizeable three hours per call in 2022 compared with 2021, and berth hours also improved over most call size ranges despite the challenging operating conditions in the first half of the year. Yangshan continues to build for the future with ongoing heavy investment in automation and rail connectivity.”

The index ranks 348 global container ports on efficiency, measured by the elapsed time between when a ship reaches a port to its departure from the berth having completed its cargo exchange.

“The ranking is intended to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement for the benefit of key stakeholders in global trade, including government, shipping lines, port and terminal operators, shippers, logistics companies and consumers,” the report’s authors said.

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