Moroccan Ports See 10% Traffic Surge Amid Pandemic, Handling 32 Million Tons

According to l’Économiste, the impact of the health crisis on maritime traffic is rather positive. Flows remain sustained, both in imports and exports, particularly for strategic products, food, energy and phosphates and derivatives. With regard to the traffic passing through the ports managed by the ANP, it amounted to 31.3 million tons at the end of last April, an increase of nearly 10%. "For the month of April alone, the flows processed amounted to 7.8 million tons, up 4.9% compared to the same month of the previous year," adds the economic daily.

In clear, a 6.3% increase in imports to 19.4 million tons, an 8.4% increase in exports to 10.8 million tons and a 1.5% increase to 1 million tons in coastal shipping on energy products were recorded. According to the same source, the predominance of 3 ports in traffic, namely those of Casablanca, Mohammedia and Jorf Lasfar, was noted. These three ports alone accounted for the transit of 24.8 million tons, or more than 80% of the traffic.

In addition, international road transport activity is on the rise. "At the end of the first 4 months, TIR traffic amounted to 5,887 units, a strong increase of 17% compared to the end of April 2019," it is indicated. As for containers, they were handled by the ports under the ANP. In total, more than 450,000 boxes at the end of last April, or the equivalent of 4.4 million tons, were processed.

As for the overall hydrocarbon traffic, it is down 5.3% to 3.3 million tons, due to the reduction in this activity in the ports of Mohammedia (-6.4%), Jorf Lasfar (-69%), Nador (-14.6%) and Laâyoune (-12.1%). As for coastal shipping from Tanger-Med, a large part of which concerns diesel and fuel oil, it increased by 14.6%.