Statistics put freight volumes in perspective

While the growth in imports and exports through South Africa’s ports may have been disappointing over the past year, there has been a massive cumulative growth since 2015, according to statistics compiled by Lance Pullan of Linernet. His statistics reveal that import volumes have grown by a compounded average of 5.32% a year to bring growth in the 13 years from 2005 to 2017 to 69.2%. Exports grew by an average of 5.29% over the same period, increasing by a cumulative 68.74%. However, the figures for 2017 to 2018 tell a different story – imports were up by 10.7% and exports by less than half – 4.56%. This is reflected in the balance of payments, with the country recording a record outflow of  R26 947.43 million in January 2018. Drilling down to port level, Pullan found that Durban showed the biggest

growth in container volumes from 2016 to 2018. This correlates with an earlier study where his statistics show that Durban volumes have been growing at the expense of the other ports in the Transnet stable, despite the congestion and other problems in the port. Predictably, Port

Elizabeth’s volumes have been dropping steadily as the port is now largely dedicated to the export of bulk manganese. Ngqura volumes have not picked up correspondingly, which means the cargo has moved to other regions. There is much the same pattern in container exports

through the four ports – Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Ngqura. Durban has a wide gap between export and import volumes, with imports dominating. Cape Town’s gap is lower, with more exports than imports.