World Bank: Regional Disruptions Drive Changes in Global Container Port Performance Ranking

The newest global Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) reveals that East and Southeast Asian ports excelled in 2023, accounting for 13 of the top 20 places.

Developed by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, the fourth edition of CPPI is based on the biggest dataset ever: more than 182,000 vessel calls, 238.2 million moves, and about 381 million twenty-foot equivalents (TEUs) for the full calendar year of 2023. More than 80% of merchandise trade is transported by sea, so the resilience, efficiency, and overall performance of ports is crucial to global markets and economic development.

Regional disruptions impacted port performance everywhere, according to the new report.

“While the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath eased further in 2023, container shipping continues to be an unpredictable and volatile sector,” said Martin Humphreys, Lead Transport Economist at the World Bank. “Major ports need to invest in resilience, new technology, and green infrastructure to ensure the stability of global markets and the sustainability of the shipping industry.”

There are 57 new ports in the CPPI 2023, including Muuga Harbour in Estonia and Port of Al Duqm in Oman, as well as several notable movers. One of the major Indian ports, Visakhapatnam Port, made it into the top 20. Despite its relatively low ranking, Dar es Salaam Port in Tanzania managed to shave ship arrival times by 57%.

“There is a greater awareness and focus on resilience and efficiency of maritime gateways and greater understanding of negative impact of port delays on economic development,” said Turloch Mooney, Head of Port Intelligence & Analytics at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “The highly interconnected nature of container shipping means the negative effect of poor performance in a port can extend beyond that port’s hinterland and disrupt entire schedules. This increases the cost of imports and exports, reduces competitiveness and hinders economic growth and poverty reduction.”

Looking at the top-performing ports, China’s Yangshan Port earned the top spot for the second consecutive year, while Oman’s Port of Salalah retained the number two position. The port of Cartagena in Colombia ascended to 3rd place. Tanger-Mediterranean of Morocco held steady in 4th, and Tanjung Pelepas Port in Malaysia rounded out the top 5.

The CPPI ranks 405 global container ports by efficiency, focusing on the duration of port stay for container vessels. Its primary aim is to identify areas for enhancement for the benefit of multiple stakeholders in the global trading system and supply chains, from ports to shipping lines, national governments, and consumers.

Container Port Performance Index (CPPI)

Developed by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, the global Container Port Performance Index is a comparable index of global container port performance intended to serve as a reference point for key stakeholders in the global economy, including national governments, port authorities, development agencies, supra-national organizations and private operators of trade, logistics and supply chain services.

The challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath on the sector eased further in 2023. Continuing or new disruptions in the form of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Aden, and draught restrictions on the Panama Canal, all impacted container shipping. In addition, the glut of new capacity ordered by lines during the pandemic and falling demand meant that freight rates have fallen, after an initial slump, to pre-pandemic norms on most routes. These changes impact performance and the ranking of ports. While some problems are exogenous or systemic, some are endogenous or location specific, with the result that both impact the performance and ranking of individual ports. One of the ‘silver linings’ of the pandemic was greater awareness and focus on the resilience and efficiency of the maritime gateways, where any friction will result in tangible impacts on consumer choice, price, and ultimately economic development. That focus is even more important now.

Traditionally, one of the major challenges to stimulating improvement in the efficiency of ports has historically been the lack of a reliable, consistent, and comparable basis on which to compare operational performance across different ports. While modern ports collect data for performance purposes, the quality, consistency, and availability of data, the definitions employed, and the capacity and willingness of the organizations to collect and transmit data to a collating body have all precluded the development of a robust comparable measure(s) to assess performance across ports and time.

The introduction of new technologies, increased digitalization, and the willingness on the part of industry stakeholders to work collectively toward systemwide improvements have now provided the opportunity to measure and compare container port performance in a robust and reliable manner. A partnership has resulted in this technical report, which is the fourth iteration of the Container Port
Performance Index (CPPI), produced by the Transport Global Practice of the World Bank in collaboration with the Global Intelligence & Analytics division of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The CPPI is intended, as in its earlier iterations, to serve as a reference point for improvement for key stakeholders in the global economy, including national governments, port authorities and operators, development agencies, supranational organizations, various maritime interests, and other public and private stakeholders in trade, logistics, and supply chain services. The performance of a port may be assessed based on a myriad of measurements, such as: terminal capacity or space utilization, cost, landside connectivity & services, or ship to shore interchange. The CPPI is based on available empirical objective data pertaining exclusively to time expended in a vessel stay in a port and should be interpreted as an indicative measure of container port performance, but not a definitive one.

Maritime transport forms the foundation of global trade and the manufacturing supply chain. The maritime industry provides the most cost-effective, energy-efficient, and dependable mode of transportation for long distances. More than 80 percent of global merchandise trade (by volume) is transported via sea routes. A considerable and increasing proportion of this volume, accounting for about 35 percent of total volumes and over 60 percent of commercial value, is carried in containers. The emergence of containerization brought about significant changes in how and where goods are manufactured and processed, a trend that is likely to continue with digitalization. Container ports are critical nodes in global supply chains and essential to the growth strategies of many emerging economies. In numerous cases, the development of high-quality container port infrastructure operating efficiently has been a prerequisite for successful export-led growth strategies. Countries that follow such a strategy will have higher levels of economic growth than those that do not. Efficient, high quality port infrastructure can facilitate investment in production and distribution systems, engender expansion of manufacturing and logistics, create employment opportunities, and raise income levels.

However, ports and terminals, especially container terminals, can cause shipment delays, disruptions in supply chain, additional expenses, and reduced competitiveness. The negative effect of poor performance in a port can extend beyond the that port’s hinterland to others as container shipping services follow a fixed schedule with specific berth windows at each port of call on the route. Therefore, poor performance at one port could disrupt the entire schedule. This, in turn, increases the cost of imports and exports, reduces the competitiveness of the country and its hinterland, and hinders economic growth and poverty reduction. The consequences are particularly significant for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS).

Comparing operational performance across ports has been a major challenge for improving global value chains due to the lack of a reliable, consistent, and comparable basis. Despite the data collected by modern ports for performance purposes, the quality, consistency, and availability of data, as well as the definitions used and the capacity and willingness of organizations to transmit data to a collating body, have hindered the development of a comparable measure(s) for assessing performance across ports and time. However, new technologies, increased digitalization, and industry interests’ willingness to work collectively toward systemwide improvements now provide an opportunity to measure and compare container port performance in a robust and reliable manner. The World Bank’s Transport Global Practice and the Global Intelligence & Analytics division of S&P Global Market Intelligence have collaborated to produce the fourth edition of the Container Port Performance Index (CPPI), presented in this technical paper.

The aim of the CPPI is to pinpoint areas for enhancement that can ultimately benefit all parties involved, ranging from shipping lines to national governments and consumers. It is designed to act as a point of reference for important stakeholders in the global economy, including port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, various maritime interests, and other public and private stakeholders in trade, logistics, and supply chain services. The development of the CPPI rests on total container ship in port time in the manner explained in subsequent sections of the report, and as in earlier iterations of the CPPI. This fourth iteration utilizes data for the full calendar year of 2023. It continues the change introduced last year of only including ports that had a minimum of 24 valid port calls within the 12-month period of the study. The number of ports included in the CPPI 2023 is 405. As in earlier iterations of the CPPI, the production of the ranking employs two different methodological approaches, an administrative, or technical, approach, a pragmatic methodology reflecting expert knowledge and judgment; and a statistical approach, using factor analysis (FA), or more accurately matrix factorization. The rationale for using two approaches was to try and ensure that the ranking of container port performance reflects as closely as possible actual port performance, whilst also being statistically robust.

As there had been a marked improvement in consistency between the rankings resulting from the two approaches since the inaugural CPPI 2020, for CPPI 2023, the same two methodological approaches were used. In addition, the rank aggregation method is employed again to combine the results and return one aggregate ranking. The construction of the statistical and administrative approaches, the aggregation methodology and the resulting ranking is detailed in the report, while the respective rankings of the former are detailed in Appendix A. Table E.1 presents the resulting CPPI 2023.
The top-ranked container ports in the CPPI 2023 are Yangshan Port (China) in first place, followed by the Port of Salalah (Oman) in second place, retaining their ranking from the CPPI 2022. Third place in the CPPI 2023 is occupied by the port of Cartagena, up from 5th place in the CPPI 2022, whilst TangierMediterranean retains its 4th place ranking. Tanjung Pelepas improved one position to 5th, Ningbo moved up from 12th in 2022 to 7th in 2023, and Port Said moved from 16th to 10th in 2023. Ports moving in the other direction in the top ten: Khalifa port falls from 3rd position in 2022 to 29th position in CPPI 2023. Hamad Port which fell from 8th in 2022 to 11th in 2023

source : hellenicshippingnews