The devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut on August 4 caused widespread corruption and ruined Beirut’s main trade and shipping area thus limiting Lebanese imports and exports. The damage massively involved public infrastructure and indirect economic impacts on the export and supply chain activity.
In details, the latest statistics on activity at the Port of Beirut show an annual slump of 45.73% in the revenues of the Port of Beirut (PoB) to $74M by August 2020.
Total container activity including transshipment (TEU+TS) fell by a yearly 39.05% to stand at 524,166 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), with Container activity (TEU) alone significantly declining by 46.06% year-on-year (YOY) to 285,046 TEU by August 2020. In its turn, Transshipment activity (TS) slipped by 27.87% YOY to 239,120 TEU over the same period. Moreover, the total volume of imported and exported merchandise fell by an annual 38.34% to 2895.3 tons.
Accordingly, the transshipment volume of CMA CGM, one of the two major shipping lines operating at the Port of Beirut, fell by 13.5% YOY to 95,744 TEU. Similarly, the transshipment activity of MSC decreased by 49.02% YOY to 84,278 TEU by August 2020. In addition, the local volumes of CMA CGM and MSC also fell by 32.42% and 56.4% to 61,295 and 69,526 TEU, respectively, by August 2020.
Port of Beirut’s Total Revenues by August ($M)
Source: Port of Beirut