East Asian container ports are the most efficient in the world and dominate the Top 50 spots of the new global Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) launched by the World Bank and IHS Markit.
Yokohama in Japan tops the ranking, ahead of King Abdullah Port in Saudi Arabia and Qingdao in China.
Algeciras in Spain is the highest ranked European port, in 10th place overall. Colombo in Sri Lanka is the top-ranked port in South Asia at 17th place, and Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas leads the Americas at 25th.
Canada’s Halifax is the only other North American port in the Top 50. Djibouti, in 61st place, is the top-ranked African port.
Key port performance metrics such as minutes per container move show large discrepancies in global port efficiency, with top performers such as Yokohama taking just 1.1 minutes on average to load or unload a container in a standard port call while the average for equivalent workloads in African ports is more than three times that at 3.6 minutes.
The Index is intended to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement that will benefit stakeholders from shipping lines to national governments to consumers. It is based entirely in IHS Markit’s Port Performance Program data.
The analysis is based on total port hours per ship call, defined as the elapsed time between when a ship reaches a port to its departure from the berth having completed its cargo exchange. Greater or lesser workloads are accounted for by examining the underlying data within ten different call size ranges. Five distinct ship size groups are accounted for in the methodology given the potential for greater fuel and emissions savings on larger vessels.