Maritime trade predicted to slow

Ghana’s maritime trade outlook for 2016 is likely to see a decline in trade volume and a slowdown in both imports of major commodities and exports of semi-processed goods to the Chinese and European market, Abdul Haki Bashiru-Dine, a Research Officer at the Ghana Shippers Authority has projected.

 

The major factors, he said, will be attributed largely to the worsening economic environment, the energy crisis and its effect on manufacturing sector, negative growth in agricultural output, the uncertainties surrounding election years, and the attitudes of business people.

“Ghana is expected to record a further decline of its international trade volumes in 2016 of about 10% compared to 2015. The slowdown in the Chinese manufacturing sector and the exchange rate volatility of the cedi against major trading currencies like the US dollar will significantly affect Ghana’s international maritime trade,” Bashiru-Dine said.

Latest figures from the Ghana Shippers Authority obtained by the B&FT show that the country’s maritime trade at its two seaports of Tema and Takoradi recorded a decline of 14.3% to 13.0 million tonnes between January-December 2015, as compared to the 15.1 million tonnes recorded during same period in 2014. 

Total import trade for the period recorded a decline of 12.8% -- to a figure of 9.4 million tonnes compared to 10.8 million tonnes in 2014.

Total export trade in the review period was 3.5 million tonnes for 2015,  a decline of 18% compared with the 4.3 million tonnes recorded in 2014.  The port of Tema recorded a decline in imports and exports trade of 12.4%  and 34.7% respectively.

The port of Takoradi recorded declines in its import and export trade of 16.7 % and 6.2 % respectively. 

Total trade for Tema Port was 9.6 million tonnes of import/export, and Takoradi Port recorded 2.4 million tonnes and 989,913 tonnes in exports and imports trade for 2015 respectively. 

The data show that transit trade recorded an increase of 1.4%  in 2015 compared to 2014 for the same period, representing a significant increase over the past five years’ transit trade figures from 2009-2014 volumes which have been on the decline.

“It is quite refreshing that efforts by stakeholders in improving and attracting transit cargo to our ports are paying dividends.’

“The transit trade is on an upward journey, as noted in the January to September 2015 review where it recorded quite a high increase of over 20 percent. Based on this, it is expected that the transit trade will record a high volume at the end of 2015.” 

The majority of maritime imports for the period January to September 2015 came from the Far East, Africa and the North Europe (Scandinavia) and Mediterranean Europe ranges. 

Each of these ranges recorded tonnages as follows:  Far East recorded 3.3 million tonnes representing 38%; North Europe had 1.6 million representing 19 tonnes; while Africa recorded 1.4 million tonnes representing 16%; and Mediterranean Europe had 1.2 million tonnes or 14%.   

Maritime imports from North America and the other ranges recorded 486,988 tonnes and 563,894 tonnes, amounting 6% of total import trade for the review period. The UK range recorded 89,561 tonnes, amounting to only 1% of total maritime imports for the period.

Total import laden containers for the review period amounted to  211,201 -- equivalent to 301,148 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs).  Compared to performance in the same period of 2014, the laden container import trade recorded an increase of over 9% in the total number of containers -- indicating over 8% in TEU.

Export trade

The total export trade for the review period amounted to about over 4.3 million tonnes. This was made up of over one million tonnes of liner items, 337,102 tonnes of break bulk items, and over 1.9 million tonnes of dry bulk items. The remaining 13,921 tonnes was recorded for liquid bulk items. 

Compared to the previous year’s total tonnage, the review year recorded a decline of 6 percent in export trade. 

The liner trade recorded a decrease of over 11%, the break bulk trade a deccrease of 8 percent, and the liquid bulk trade a decrease of nearly 48%. The dry bulk however showed a slight increase of over 1%. 

Liner export trade for the review period was over 15 percent less than was recorded for the same period in 2014. It was made up of cocoa beans recording 253,552 tonnes; cocoa products had 168,488 tonnes; and sawn timber/lumber was 46,245 tonnes. 

Non-traditional exports including cashew-nuts was 162,770 tonnes; shea-nut/shea-nut butter had 31,952 tonnes; banana recorded 31,277 tonnes; and scrap-metal was 31,543 tonnes.

The break bulk export trade for the review period fell by 8 percent. The major export commodities in this trade category are bagged cocoa beans and timber logs. 

A slight increase of over 1% was recorded for the dry bulk export trade during the review period. Commodities in this trade including manganese was 979,936 tonnes; bauxite was 849,273 tonnes, bulk cocoa beans had 57,044 tonnes, and bulk shea-nuts was 68,202 tonnes.

On the liquid bulk export trade, the total liquid bulk exports for the review period decreased by over 47%, with major items in this trade being petroleum products.

Direction of the maritime export trade: The 3.3 million tonnes of maritime exports recorded for the review period was shipped to various destinations in the world.  The majority of items exported went to the Far East and the North Europe ranges. 

The Far East range received a total of 1.6 million tonnes, 49% of total export, while the North Europe range had a tonnage of over 510,000 tonnes or 15% of total export.