The year 2023 has been exceptional for Tanger Med. In northern Morocco, the port crossed the threshold of eight million twenty-foot equivalent containers (TEU) for the first time, reaching 19e rank of global container ports, according to the annual ranking of the French firm Alphaliner. In an environment crushed by the domination of Chinese ports, where the number one, Shanghai, totals nearly 50 million TEUs, Tanger Med even achieved one of the best growths in the top 20, up +13.4%. compared to 2022.
Its traffic having more than doubled in five years, the Moroccan port now rivals Long Beach (California), Laem Chabang (Thailand) and Kaohsiung (Taiwan). The results from the start of the year still give cause for optimism. Compared to the first quarter of 2023, the overall tonnage handled at Tanger Med increased by 10%, says Rachid Houari, deputy general director of the port authority. A progression “slightly higher than what the port usually experiences”he indicates, seeing this as an effect of the crisis in the Red Sea, whose waters have been, since December 2023, the target of attacks by the Houthi rebels of Yemen.
The reconfiguration of maritime routes, with the rerouting of container ships towards the Cape of Good Hope, has congested certain ports in the western Mediterranean, including that of Barcelona, one of the most affected. But Tanger Med, the main transshipment hub in the basin for goods from China, “seems to be a step ahead of its competitors”, assures Peter Sand, chief analyst at the Norwegian firm Xeneta. Co-shareholder of a terminal in the port, the French company CMA CGM nevertheless recognizes that its capacities are “in tension”. Another repercussion of the events in the Red Sea, freight rates are on the rise. Those from the Singapore spot market to Tangier Med went from 4,000 dollars (3,678 euros) to more than 5,100 and continue to climb.
Labor “ten times cheaper”
“Tanger Med outperforms and benefits from a situational annuity in the current context”, summarizes Jérôme de Ricqlès, maritime expert with the French start-up Upply. The Moroccan port takes full advantage of its position on the Strait of Gibraltar and its industrial rear base of 1,300 companies, but above all of a workforce “ten times cheaper” that its direct competitor, Algeciras, in Spain, warns Najib Cherfaoui, maritime specialist and teacher at the Hassania school of public works in Casablanca (Morocco). A boon for CMA CGM and the two other major global shipowners, MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) and Maersk, which also hold shares in the Tanger Med terminals.
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