Containers carry the country’s ports
Ports play an important role on Morocco’s 1,835 km coastline. In the first half of the year they were largely able to withstand the effects of the pandemic. They largely made up for the lack of passengers with adequate volumes of goods.
Moroccan ports did well in H1 / 2020, despite government measures to contain the outbreak of Covid-19, as is shown by figures released by the country’s Agence Nationale des Ports (ANP). Every major port in the country is in the ANP, except for Tangier Med. 33 gateways handled almost 47.4 million t through to the end of June, an increase of 7.5% over the same period last year. This growth in goods is all the more important for Moroccan ports, as passenger traffic slumped by more than 60%.
Financially, Moroccan ports got off lightly in the first half of the year. Consolidated sales amounted to MAD 1.1 billion (EUR 102.3 million), an increase of 2.6% over the previous year. However, the fact that sales increased for the half year is owed to the first quarter. In the second quarter ANP recorded a minus of 9.3%.
The port authority’s consolidated investments saw the opposite movement. ANP invested significantly more in the second quarter than in 2019, in an entirely anticyclical way. It was more cautious in the first three months of this year, so that total investments of MAD 572 million (EUR 52.5 million) came in 6% lower than in the first half of 2019.
Fewer trucks, but more containers in Tangier
The port of Tangier Med, Morocco’s logistics flagship, also compensated for the decline in passenger volumes with a significant increase in cargo handling. Container traffic increased by 22% in the first half of 2020, rising to 2.7 million teu.
The number of international trucks handled slipped by 18% and into the red. In the second quarter the number of trucks almost halved. Despite the difficult conditions, Tangier Med managed to increase its turnover by 2% to MAD 1.16 billion (EUR 106.6 million). Even though a series of very large construction projects in Tangier Med have now been completed, the port continues to invest heavily in infrastructure in the surrounding area. These investments amounted to MAD 237 million (about EUR 21.7 million) at the end of June.
