Asia-West Africa trade recovering in 2017

Container volumes on the trade have increased so far this year compared with the same 2016 period, and Drewry has projected modest growth potential on the trade in 2018.    The Asia-to-West Africa trade experienced a 7 percent year-over-year boost in container volumes during the third quarter of 2017, according to data from Container Trade Statistics, Drewry reported in its latest Container Insight Weekly.
   For the first nine months of the year, container throughput on the trade ticked up 3.2 percent from the corresponding 2016 period, reaching just over 900,000 TEUs.
   The trade’s higher container volumes seen in 2017 can be partly attributed to recoveries in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis, and the rising oil market, since the trade is highly exposed to the oil market’s changes, with the major oil exporting nations in West Africa such as Nigeria and Angola being highly dependent on foreign exchange earnings to fund imports, Drewry explained.
   Currently, the Asia to West Africa trade is served by nine fully cellular container services, which collectively deploy 101 containerships averaging 5,326 TEUs, according to ocean carrier schedule and capacity database BlueWater Reporting’s Capacity Report. Of the 11 carriers deploying capacity from Asia to West Africa, Mediterranean Shipping Co. takes top place, deploying a total of 127,195 TEUs on the trade, BlueWater Reporting’s Carrier/Trade Route Deployment Report illustrates.
   Looking ahead, Drewry said the trade’s prospects for 2018 appear to be similar to this year, with some modest growth potential.
   Drewry said that according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the recovery in oil production will enable Nigeria to more than double its growth in gross domestic product (GDP) from 0.8 percent this year to 1.9 percent in 2018, while the country’s non-oil GDP increase will experience a 1.1 percent hike, versus 0.5 percent this year.
   However, the IMF was cautious in its assessment for the sub-Saharan Africa region, citing the recovery of oil production as a one-off factor, while highlighting future growth headwinds such as rising public debt, per capital income declines across a substantial section of the population, and low international currency reserves in many countries, Drewry explained.
   “The outlook for this trade is much brighter than it has been for the past two years, but there is still a long way to go to recover all of the lost ground,” Drewry said. “While the demand outlook is improving, there is little reason to expect any great surge in inbound volumes into West Africa next year,” Drewry said. “Having got greedy, carriers will be more wary of adding too much capacity to this trade in one hit in the future.”