The latest statistics on activity at the Port of Beirut show an annual slump of 39.65% in the revenues of the Port of Beirut (PoB) to $6.52M by July 2021, compared to last year’s $10.80M.
Lately, worldwide consumer demand slumped and a significant shift in consumers’ spending due to the ongoing pandemic related shutdowns at ports and factories, both led to global shipping crisis. In fact, shortage of shipping containers pushed container prices higher and affected the worldwide trade volumes at the ports. In turn, Beirut Port activities and revenues decreased.
In details, total container activity including transshipment (TEU+TS) fell by a yearly 18.60% to stand at 55,072 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), with Transshipment activity (TS) alone declining by 33.93% year-on-year (YOY) to 15,142 TEU by July 2021. In the same token, container activity (TEU) decreased by 10.75% YOY to 39,930 TEU over the same period.
Accordingly, the transshipment volume of CMA CGM, one of the two major shipping lines operating at the Port of Beirut, dropped by 31.46% YOY to 11,397 TEU by July 2021. Contrarily, the transshipment activity of MSC added 30.02% YOY to 1,412 TEU by July 2021. In addition, the local volume of CMA CGM decreased by 90.62% to reach 1,215 TEU, while the local volume of MSC retreated by 18.84% to stand at 7,138 TEU for the month of July 2021.
Port of Beirut Revenues by July (in USD)
Source: PoB, BLOMINVEST