Morocco’s Tanger Med Port Poised to Benefit from Red Sea Crisis

Since the Houthi (Shiite) militias began carrying out attacks in the Red Sea, most commercial, oil or gas ships prefer to take the detour via the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Faced with this security crisis that has led to a 21% increase in tariffs and a 150% increase in freight costs, shipping companies are looking for cheap, efficient and well-located ports to serve as a logistics base on this new route, reports La Vanguardia.

This is where Morocco comes in, with good port infrastructure, particularly the port of Tanger Med, open on the southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar. "Tanger Med is now the port that is gaining momentum," say industry sources closely following the crisis in the Red Sea, stressing that the Moroccan port, given its strategic geographical position (located between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, between Africa and Europe), its large capacity and its competitive rates, has already positioned itself at the end of 2023 as the leading Mediterranean port for container traffic, far ahead of the Spanish ports of Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona.

Located twenty kilometers from Ceuta, Tanger Med is an ideal port for transshipment of goods. Morocco also plans to build another large commercial port in Nador, 50 kilometers from Melilla, in order to promote the creation of two large economic activity zones in these Moroccan cities, close to the two Spanish enclaves. The crisis in the Red Sea, whose end is unknown, could allow the kingdom to achieve this strategic objective.

Meanwhile, Europe is very affected by this crisis, which has already reduced traffic through the Suez Canal by 45%. The most affected ports are the Italian ports of Genoa, Gioia Tauro, Malta, Trieste, the port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Greek port of Piraeus, according to industry sources.